TIRANA, June 3 – Prime Minister Edi Rama has asked President-elect Ilir Meta to reflect on his involvement in the electoral campaign and to repair what Rama says was damage Meta did to the image of the Office of the Head of State during Meta’s engagement in the favor of the party he had founded, the Socialist Movement for Integration.
Meta resigned as party chairman after parliament chose him to become president, but he said he would participate in the campaign because he had not yet been sworn in and thus not bound by the duties of the office, which is constitutionally nonpartisan, but it has in practice rarely been so.
“I would like to today, publicly, to ask him to reflect as the President who took our votes to be consensual, non-conflictual, to stand above the parties and to focus on how to repair the unprecedented damage made to the figure of the office of head of state in the past 40 days,” Rama said.
Despite promising not to be involved in the SMI campaign, Meta quickly moved to attacking and using harsh language against Prime Minister Rama and opposition leader Lulzim Basha, who he viewed as working together to the detriment of SMI and other smaller parties, especially in the case of some violence against SMI activists on voting day.
The Socialist Movement for Integration came in third with 19 seats, moving to the ranks of the opposition after eight years in power in successive DP- and SP-led governments in which SMI served as kingmaker.
Meta, a former prime minister, was elected president with the help of Socialist Party lawmakers. He is to be sworn in later this month.
Albania’s ruling Socialist Party has been able to gain a comfortable governing majority in the June 25 parliamentary elections, winning 74 seats in the 140-member parliament. Its chief rival, the center-right Democratic Party, has scored one of its worst results in its 27-year history, coming in second with 45 seats. The Socialist Movement for Integration came in third with 19 seats, moving to the ranks of the opposition after eight years in power in successive DP- and SP-led governments in which SMI served as kingmaker.
One of the key goals of Rama was to be able to govern alone, without the SMI, who has accused of wanting a piece of the pie instead of offering support of the governance.
