Security concerns lead political debate

TIRANA, March 20 – Faced with a wave of high-profile crimes, often involving the use of small amounts of explosives in targeted killings, Albania’s government has moved to reassure people that security in the country is a top priority.
The prime minister said this week the security and law and order situation have actually improved in recent months, citing the government’s latest figures. However, the opposition says the situation has deteriorated significantly, blaming the government for mismanaging the police forces.
Prime Minister Edi Rama said this week crime figures have dropped by about 33 percent from the same period last year. However, he indicated that high-profile incidents receiving wide media attention have led to perceptions of higher crime rates which do not fully reflect the reality on the ground. These incidents in themselves were symptoms that showed Albania’s police were being effective in fighting organized crime and pinning it against the wall, Rama said.
Speaking to thousands of young people competing to become police recruits, Rama said the government was aiming to make radical reforms of the country’s security forces, including bringing more young people and more women into the police forces across the country.
“The time of crime ruling the streets of this country is over,” Rama said.
The opposition says the government is at fault for mismanaging the current police force, and it adds it doesn’t believe the government figures that crime is down.
Democratic Party MP Arben Ristani said the Socialist-led government has fired and reassigned hundreds of skilled police officers, hampering the ability of police forces to perform their duties. Many crimes are also not being recorded properly, he added.
“How can you talk about safety when there are explosives going off on a daily basis and murders are increasing,” Ristani said.
The governing Socialist Party of Prime Minister Rama and the main opposition Democratic Party of Tirana Mayor Lulzim Basha have made security to top item in their recent debates in parliament and the media, with Democrats accusing the government of being unable to protect its citizens from crime.
However, the government says much of what the opposition cites is a result of the intensified attack on the criminal organizations in the country and that many murders have also been targeted crimes within criminal organizations, not random violence.
Opposition MPs have demanded a parliamentary inquiry commission that will investigate recent appointments to senior positions in the police forces, some of which the opposition sees as inadequate.

Government unhappy with secret service chief

The government’s relations with the the secret service chief, Visho Ajazi Lika, continues to be a hot issue, with governing MPs having started an investigation into his work.
The governing parties’ MPs started an investigation on Ajazi Lika after local media reported that intelligence service had spied on top police officers and after the interior minister complained he was receiving little or no information from the secret service to deal with organized crime and high-profile crimes involving the use of explosives.
Socialist MPs have made no secret of the fact that they would like to replace Ajazi Lika.
The head of the parliamentary commission on security, Spartak Braho, said however that the investigation was being held back by a technicality, as it cannot continue following the revelation that Ajazi Lika’s security certificate had expired. Braho said that until Ajazi Lika gets the security certificate of security, they cannot proceed with the investigation.
Ajazi Lika was nominated to the post by former Prime Minister Sali Berisha of Democratic Party and the now ruling Socialist-led coalition has said he is politically connected to the Democratic Party, which makes cooperation with the current government hard.
The opposition Democratic Party has countered that he leads an independent institution and that the new government is trying to take over all of the country’s independent institutions, particularly those led by officials that had been nominated by the center-right coalition now in opposition.

Government’s relations with president deteriorate

One of those nominees is President Bujar Nishani, who also has the power to hold the government in check in certain areas, including who serves as the secret service chief.
Tuesday, Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri requested a meeting with Nishani, which, judging by the media statements afterward was likely tense.
“After calling the issue of inter-institutional cooperation and trust a main priority, especially in the fight against organized crime and trafficking, the President of the Republic advised the Minister of Interior to avoid verbal confrontation with institutions, particularly in the framework of commitments for law enforcement,” the presidency said in a statement.
Tahiri had been very vocal in his displeasure with the work of the secret service.
President Nishani, a former Democratic Party official and a former interior minister himself, has often not seen eye-to-eye with the current Socialist government, in power since mid-September last year.
Tahiri said afterward he was asked to report on the situation of the organized crime, terrorism, corruption in the country. Tahiri said he told the truth to the president, following the latter’s statements.
“It would have been good whether the president would stay above the parties and would urge institutional cooperation,” Tahiri said. “I consider that in all the cases it would have been healthy for the President of the Republic to moderate the cooperation among the institutions rather than neglect the truth and stand on one side, whatever that was.”
Tahiri also said that he informed the president on the lack of information police and the government in general had from the intelligence service, or SHISH as it is known by its Albanian acronym.