TIRANA, Mar. 20 – Albanian president Ilir Meta said on Wednesday he would be ready to resign from his post if it would help resolve the deadlock the country is facing, be it from the non-functioning Constitutional Court to the opposition’s parliamentary mandates resignation and the risk of a junte installment.
Meta said that after failing to mediate a solution he was ready to resign if he were “assured the country has a political, constitutional and solid solution.”
“I am willing to sacrifice myself first in the name of a political solution that restores constitutional, institutional, political, democratic normality in the country and guarantees quick progress towards the opening of EU negotiations, I am ready for both extremes: starting from the resignation of my mandate as president after I make sure that the country has a principled, constitutional, solid political solution, up to the sacrifice of my life as Salvador Alende to stop installing a junta that could take Albania thirty years in the past,” Meta said in an interview during his trip to Pogradec.
According to Meta, the constitutional and institutional crisis is nothing new, but initiatives to not let it escalate have been hindered, even when they came from him alone.
However, he believes the situation has gotten much worse now that the institution is officially boycotting parliament and the upcoming local elections.
Now the crisis is further deepened after an unprecedented action by the Albanian opposition which is an inadmissible and reprehensible act that has seriously deepened the representation crisis of Albania as the main representative institution of the Republic of Albania and Albanian citizens
“Now, the crisis is further deepened after an unprecedented action by the Albanian opposition which is an inadmissible and reprehensible act that has seriously deepened the Albanian parliament representation crisis as the main institution of the Republic of Albania and Albanian citizens,” Meta said.
Though Meta was elected two years ago with the votes of the ruling leftist Socialist Party, he has not been at peace with the government since.
The center-right Democratic Party-led opposition has resigned from its parliamentary mandates and has been holding protests accusing the leftist Socialist Party government of Prime Minister Edi Rama of being corrupt and linked to organized crime, and asking for an early election.
Speaking to reporters in the eastern city of Pogradec, Meta also compared himself to the Chilean President Salvador Allende, who killed himself in 1973 as troops surrounded his palace following a military coup.
Meta said he would be ready to “sacrifice my own life like Salvador Allende to stop the installation of a junta that would turn Albania back 30 years.”
The opposition has not heeded calls from the United States and the European Union not to incite violence and to sit down for talks with the government.
