Consensus over territorial reform appears elusive, as the opposition says government moves on civil service and independent institutions negate its willingness to work with the opposition on reforming local governance units
TIRANA, Feb. 20 – Only five months after handing over power to the Socialists in a big electoral defeat, Albania’s main opposition Democratic Party has held a rally in Tirana to protest what it says is the deteriorating governance in Albania and the inability of the governing coalition to fulfill any of its promises.
The Democrats’ protest appeared aimed at capitalizing on growing concern among Albanians with a perceived rise in the cost of living and crime as well as on the anger of hundreds of the party’s activists and others who have been fired from their jobs in the civil service and other state- provided employment.
Democratic Party Chairman Lulzim Basha said the new leftist government of Prime Minister Edi Rama was acting unconstitutionally and seriously harming any chance of the political consensus needed to move forward the country’s EU bid.
The Democrats say they are particularly angry over the new law on the civil service, which was approved by consensus before the elections, but further delayed in implementation by the government on a technicalities, despite a Constitutional Court verdict that ordered that the law be
put into use immediately.
Basha said the government’s mismana- gement of the police had led to a rise in criminality in the country. He said the government had fired experienced police officers and replaced them with party activists.
The primary drive for the protest they said, however, was the fact that in six months the government had not kept any pledges it made during the electoral campaign last year.
Basha, met with western ambassadors ahead of the rally in an apparent effort to calm concerns over the protest.
Basha, who also serves as the mayor of Tirana, and a group of the party leadership, held a working lunch with ambassadors of several EU member countries, the United States and the OSCE earlier in the week, where he explained the reasons behind the protest, adding the opposition did not intend to use violence.
The Democrats suffered a humiliating defeat in the June 2013 elections, as the the Socialist Party of Prime Minister Rama and their closest smaller ally, the Socialist Movement for Integration of Parliament Speaker Ilir Meta, won 1 million votes in last June’s parliamentary polls securing 84 seats in the 140-seat parliament.
Parliament sacks wealth inspector
As the opposition protested in a nearby boulevard, Albania’s parliament voted to sack the head of an independent state institution in charge of auditing the wealth of public officials in order to fight corruption.
The head of the High Inspectorate for Disclosure and Audit of Assets Zana Xhuka, who has strong ties to the opposition Democratic Party, was replaced following heated debate in parliament.
Xhuka, a former deputy defense minister, was put in the post from the former governing Democratic Party. She has been in open conflict with much of her staff since the government transfer of power late last year. The staff said they were not being allowed to conduct investigations properly.
Some 50 parliamentarians of the leftist governing majority signed a request for her removal, saying she lacks the specific educational qualifications required by law and has also abused with the law since she was nominated in the post. They accused Xhuka of blocking the audit of public officials since she took the post in January last year, only months before the parliamentary elections.
The request sack Xhuka was also politically motivated, analysts say. She has strong ties to the opposition and served as deputy defense minister in the centre-right government of former Prime Minister Sali Berisha from 2005 until January 2013, when she was named in that post by President Bujar Nishani and voted by the parliament then led from the Democrats with a majority.
The Socialists say that according to the law, that post should have a person with a degree in finance or law and 10 years of experience in one of the two fields.
Opposition Democrats consider such a move from the Socialists and their allies as an attempt to attack independent institutions. They say they will appeal the parliament’s decision at the Constitutional Court.
Using nominally independent institutions for political means has been a regular feature in post-communist Albania and has been practiced by both sides of the political divide, analysts say.
Opposition boycott hampers administrative reform
The conflicts in other areas with the government have led to a boycott by the opposition of work on the territorial reform initiated by the government with the support of Albania’s international partners.
The governing coalition has formally launched the parliamentary commission, but the opposition Democratic Party has declined to take part, claiming they need more guarantees that the goverment will respect the rights of the opposition.
The the opposition had requested a veto in the parliamentary commission, a request the governing parties fulfilled, but the Democrats said they won’t participate regardless because the governing majority was not respecting a decision of the Constitutional Court on public administration employees and was aiming to illegally replace the head of the personal income and property auditing for state officials.
Boycotting important reforms to extract concessions on other issues, as the Democrats are doing now, was the same tactic that the previous opposition, now in power, used. In the end, in both cases, it will likely end up hurting country’s efforts to join the European Union, as these are EU mandated reforms, analysts say.
Prime Minister Rama repeated his call of the opposition to participate and be co-leaders at the commission with veto rights.
But the opposition has noted that it is worried the governing parties might use the reform to their advantage for the local administrative elections scheduled for next year. The Socialists say they want to finish the reform before the elections.
The reform aims shift the borders of municipalities in the country, drastically shrinking the current number of municipalities, which are expensive and inefficient to maintain.
