TIRANA, Sept. 17 – Faced with mounting pressure from the domestic opposition and international partners, Albania’s government has come up with a draft law it plans to urgently submit to parliament to ban people with criminal convictions from running for public office.
The draft law list a long number of serious crimes or felonies, a final conviction for which would mean that the offender would not be able to run for elected office in local and national elections as well as be appointed to any position that requires a vote by parliament or local municipal councils.
“Individuals who in their past have been convicted in domestic or foreign courts will not be able to run for or be appointed to any public office,” Ermonela Felaj, a minister for relations with parliament, said at a press conference.
Prime Minister Edi Rama faced a barrage of accusations in parliament this week over his role in allowing several MPs and mayors with alleged criminal pasts to hold office.
One Socialist member of parliament with a human trafficking conviction in Italy resigned last week, following international pressure, but Rama squashed rumors that more resignations would follow.
“I hear a lot about this international [pressure] issue. The internationals did not elect me. Albanians elected me. That’s why my actions are dictated by Albanians, not internationals,” Rama said in parliament, telling the opposition they shouldn’t speculate with what the representatives of the international community say.
He added he won’t apologize for publishing pictures of meeting with the Kavaja mayor, one of the people accused of having a criminal conviction by the opposition, which has said the mayor had changed his identity to hide his criminal past.
“He was elected by the citizens of Kavaja, and I will take a picture with him, because neither in his case nor in the case of the mayor of Kruja, there is any court ruling that they have been convicted of any crime,” Rama said.
Kruja Mayor Artur Bushi told the media this week he won’t resign. The opposition has accused him of being arrested in Italy. He was later released, according to the local media.
“I have no convictions, and there is no ongoing investigation against me anywhere in the world,” Bushi said in a statement. “Let the opposition continue to throw mud. I’m not resigning.”
An article based on evidence obtained by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network from European law enforcement authorities showed that the two candidates running for the Socialist-led ruling coalition, Bushi and Rroshi, had been arrested for drug trafficking in Western Europe. The article came out just ahead of the elections, but the two candidates won the elections nonetheless.
The opposition says Roshi, using a slightly different name, was convicted in Albania for attacking a man with a knife when he was in his early 20s. They have published a copy of a court ruling to that effect. He was sentenced to two months, according to the ruling published by the opposition.
In an exclusive interview with Tirana Times this week, German Ambassador Hellmut Hoffmann said having people with criminal ties in elected office would likely hurt relations with Germany and the European Union.
“Everybody knows that Albania has a reputation problem for many reasons and this has been going on for many years, and I am very pleased to see that perceptions are changing for the better know. But this issue of a rather sort of unsavory connection between what you call ‘murky’ characters in politics is certainly doing no good for the reputation of Albania,” Hoffmann said. “And I would indeed say if you want to become [an EU member] as soon as possible it is certainly not a bad idea – I would use a rather strong term now – to attack this cancer as efficiently and as soon as possible.”
U.S. Ambassador Daniel B. Baer, who heads the U.S. mission at the OSCE, said this week his country noted that although progress was made in removing individuals with known criminal ties from the candidate list in the latest local elections, “some remained on the ballot.”
“We call on all Albanians to insist that their political parties offer reputable candidates who want to move the country forward. Eliminating corruption and removing criminal influences from government is essential to Albania’s development of good governance and democratic institutions,” Baer said. “The most effective way to ensure this is for Albania to make systemic constitutional and legislative reforms that prevent candidates who are subject to criminal influence or with criminal intent from being placed on the ballot.”
Under the new government-proposed law, both the Kavaja and Kruja mayors would still be eligible to run for office if firm court convictions are not proven.
For those who do have convictions of serious crimes, there will be a life ban from politics under the draft law for some, for less serious crimes the ban will be 10 to 20 years after the completion of sentence.
The opposition had submitted a similar bill, in fact, it said the government had copied the opposition’s’ proposals and presented them as its own.
The opposition also wants to go further. It has proposed that every public official must be fingerprinted for criminal background checks because some people have changed identities to hide their past, according to the opposition.
Parliament has yet to vote on the government-proposed bill.
