TIRANA, Nov. 17 – President Ilir Meta announced on Friday evening he is decreeing Sander Lleshi as the country’s new interior minister after signing his release as a military general earlier in the day.
Meta, who rejected Prime Minister Edi Rama’s proposal of Lleshi as the new MoI due to his active military status last week, had to decree Lleshi once the latter requested he’d be officially released from the military to take over running the country’s interior ministry.
During the two weeks Meta refused to decree Lleshi as the country’s interior minister, Rama appointed him deputy minister of interior, but also assigned him all the powers of the minister himself and gave Lleshi the right to start running the ministry without receiving the president’s green light.
Analysts spoke of a “constitutional crack” and a “show of strength” between Meta and Rama during the last couple of weeks, while international representatives working in the country stressed how important the complete functionality of the interior ministry is in the fight against crime and corruption, underlining the country needs a proper MoI.
Rama insisted, throughout his disagreement with Meta, that his rejection of Lleshi under the justification he was “still not convinced of his credibility” was a constitutional violation, but when Meta clarified his rejection of Lleshi was based on his active military status, Rama said he felt sorry Meta had not raised the issue before, so that the “first crack” could be avoided.
After Meta decreed Lleshi on Friday, Rama said this was a perfect example demonstrating that even when cracks seem to be irreparable, there is always a solution where there is good will.
Lleshi was released from the post of Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army in 2013 by decree of then-President Bujar Nishani. He appealed to the courts, and the Administrative Appeal granted him the right in 2017, also approving his return to office and the Ministry of Defense’s duty to pay his salary until appointment day. Meanwhile, the case passed to the High Court, where it hasn’t yet received an official solution.
Lleshi underlined that upon accepting the proposal to become interior minister he decided to give up his military career, although the court’s decision has given the opportunity to both, and that with the request addressed to Meta he renounced the rights deriving from the appeal’s decision.
