TIRANA, Sept. 7 – Albania’s parliament has held a tense first session after summer recess, as the opposition Democratic Party accused several representatives of the ruling Socialist-led coalition of having ties to the criminal world.
Democrats sought the resignation of Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri after a former police officer went public with allegations that a vehicle owned by Tahiri had been used by alleged marijuana traffickers, who the accuser says are the minister’s cousins.
Tahiri said the claims were false and that the former police officer in question was a wanted man facing charges of his own.
The interior minister said the accuser was on the run, had sought asylum in a Western country and was making the false accusations to bolster his asylum claim.
Tahiri said the government had a proven record of fighting drugs, and with him at the helm, police operations had destroyed more than 650,000 cannabis plants and arrested about 250 people nationwide.
The interior minister added said he had managed to get Albania out of the black list of drug producing countries “where the previous Democratic Party government had placed it.”
The accusations in parliament came largely from Sali Berisha, the former prime minister, and Tahiri met after the session with Prosecutor general Adriatik Llalla to ask him to investigation all the accusations as well as Berisha’s conduct.
“I don’t have a single second of time to lose with the defamation stream that the old politics is used to,” Tahiri said after the meeting.
- Meta denies graft accusations –
The opposition also sought the resignation of Parliament Speaker Ilir Meta of the Socialist Movement for Integration, a party in coalition with the governing Socialists, accusing him of being part of a corruption scheme to steal from the country’s power distribution company.
Meta denies the claims and has said he will not resign.
The session often turned into a shouting match with the opposition lawmakers standing near the podium and shouting trying to disturb the Socialist ministers from making their remarks.
Parliament also voted unanimously to remove immunity for a Socialist lawmaker who was involved in a shootout earlier in the week. (Please see related coverage.)
- Judicial reform in focus –
The political debate comes as the government has said the judicial reform should be the focus of attention. They want to complete the reform by the end of the year.
The Socialist-led government has also said it will ask the European Union to launch full membership negotiations with Tirana as soon as the reform passes.
The opposition has said it has prepared its own draft of the reform. They say they want their input approved or they will withdraw from the parliamentary commission.
The government has said it will proceed with the reform with or without the opposition in the joint commission.
