Albania Crisis – Opposition welcomes Speaker’s offer to defuse crisis

Tirana, Albania | Tirana Echo – Albania’s opposition chairman Lulzim Basha has welcomed today the offer of LSI chair and Speaker of Parliament Ilir Meta to give up its party’s political mandates in favor of creating a ‘government of trust’ and solving the country’s deepening political crisis.

DP chair Basha said the opposition welcomes Meta’s comments last night while calling on prime minister Edi Rama to reflect and give way to political dialogue.

“We now have the opportunity to call on a man who is identified as the biggest barrier of free elections, the man who has placed his power above everything else, to reflect and to make way for a political dialogue, a technical government based on broad political support and to fully implement the decriminalization law in order to get every criminal out of the state offices,” said Basha this morning in the protest tent.

The opposition has been protesting from more than 45 days in front of PM office demanding the resignation of Rama and the creation of a technical government, claiming that the current ‘criminal and drug infested’ government cannot guarantee free and fair elections.

“The old republic is a plot against the citizens of Albania, which serves only a handful of politicians and criminals linked to them,” – added Basha.

Basha repeated his calls for the resignation of PM Rama whom he accuses of bringing up a corrupt elite of politicians which are stealing the state budget money and who are grabbing national wealth through endemic corruption while turning a blind eye to massive cannabis cultivation in the country, which the Italian Guardia di Finanza says has tripled since 2013.

Albania suffers from endemic corruption and a culture of political impunity which the European Union and the USA hope to tackle through an massive reform of its decayed justice system. The crucial vetting process of its judges and prosecutors, due to start this month, has been put on hold due to the opposition’s parliamentary boycott.

Last night, junior coalition partner Socialist Movement for Integration (LSI) offered to give up its ministerial and speaker’s mandate in favor of defusing the current political deadlock.

LSI chairman Ilir Meta considered the current political situation as very tense and said that any further delay would send the country in an unknown direction, insisting that both Rama and Basha should step back from their exclusive and individual positions and come to the negotiating table.