By Jorgji SIDHERI:
Work brings money to spend on celebrations and cafés; work also brings peace of mind to enjoy walks along pedestrian streets and in parks.
A few years ago, during an election campaign, it was loudly announced that a German company would build a factory in Korçë to produce electrical cables for vehicles.
1,000 workers would be employed!
1,000 employees means income for around 1,000 families — nearly 30,000–40,000 residents would have benefited from stable salaries in their households. Korçë would be full of life and residents today, instead of waiting for weekends and tourists arriving from other Albanian cities and from Greece to bring energy to the city.
As always, who knows what conditions were imposed or what percentage was demanded from the foreign investor, and in the end the company never came. It is said that the factory was opened in North Macedonia instead.
That is why we vote for our elected officials — so they think not only about themselves, but also about the community.
If they had thought even a little about the people, Albania would never have emptied like this.
We constantly read phrases in the media such as “iron woman” or “capable leader.”
I honestly wonder about these titles.
What exactly have these “capable” or “strong” people done?
Have they only improved the lives of themselves, their relatives, and a few party militants?
Year after year, the country has continued downhill.
Every year we say: last year we were better, this year we are worse — and now we have reached the point where we say: we were good even when things were bad!
The best indicator of successful leaders, politicians, and officials is the population itself: are people leaving, or are even those who left coming back?
No one leaves because life is good. On the contrary, people endure as much as they can until they simply cannot anymore, and decide to leave their homes and homeland behind, carrying only a bag of clothes on their shoulder, starting life from scratch somewhere far away.
I remember the Mayor of the municipality where I lived for many years on the island of Kos. He worked so much for the community that after his death, the main boulevard — which I first saw unpaved and surrounded by bushes — leading to the tourist beach area was named after him.