TIRANA, Sept 16 – The OSCE report leaked this week containing allegations of corruption and criminal ties for Albania’s political class (see related article) comes at a time of high tension between Albania’s political leaders and the international community over the need to have a process of decriminalization to remove from office people with criminal records.
One Socialist MP resigned last week because he had been convicted in Italy for facilitating prostitution, another was arrested after being involved in a shootout. Two Socialist mayors are also under pressure to resign over alleged criminal convictions.
The lawmaker who gave up his seat, Arben Ndoka, had become the poster child for people with criminal pasts being selected to hold seats in parliament, as U.S. diplomats openly expressed shock that someone with a human trafficking conviction was serving in the Albanian parliament.
Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama is under immense international pressure to get rid of the people with shady pasts that helped him get votes in the two recent elections and were awarded by him with being selected to run for elected office.
An expert at the Albanian Institute of International Studies says it was pressure from the international community, particularly strong-arming by U.S. Ambassador Donald Lu that led to the first budge by the prime minister, the resignation of the Socialist MP who had been sentenced for human trafficking.
“Clear, direct and undiplomatic messages by Mr. Lu were a necessary to create the proper momentum for Albanian society to reject candidates with criminal pasts,” the AIIS expert noted. “The unauthorized publication of the OSCE report involving much of the political elite in Albania kept the momentum going.”
