Vote your conscience and don’t let let anyone use religion for electoral purposes, Muslim Community of Albania organization tells followers
TIRANA, June 16 – Albania’s official Muslim Community organization has rebuked one of its imams for speaking at an electoral rally and told its followers the MCA is neutral on political matters and they should not allow anyone to speak in the name of the faith for political gain.
“Albania’s Muslim community, in fulfilling its institutional obligation to the believers and citizens of this country expresses its neutral stance toward the political spectrum, and distances itself from anyone who uses the name of the MCA and tries to speak in the name of religion for electoral effect,” the organization said in a statement.
The MCA added it encourages all Albanians to express their legal rights through voting in a free manner, as they individually see fit, to contribute to the areas in which they live.
“Assessing the importance of the exercise of the free vote as a constitutional right of every citizen, the MCA calls on Muslim believers and all Albanian citizens to fulfill this obligation in civic tranquility and in full respect of the best values we have inherited,” the MCA said.
The statement came after an imam in the Tirana outskirts spoke in support of the Socialist candidate for mayor, Erion Veliaj, at an electoral rally, a rare occurrence of its kind in Albania, a staunchly secular country where all of the country’s religious leaders try to steer away from political involvement.
Veliaj, who has been a member of Albania’s small Protestant community founded by American evangelical missionaries, did not comment on the matter. His faith has not been a public part of the campaign, a trend that is almost universal among Albanian politicians.
Albania’s religious communities have rarely made statements on political matters, and largely as a means to ask people to participate in the democratic process and accept its best values.
The country’s Catholic Church had previously asked its followers not to support candidates who had a criminal past, after two MPs from a Catholic-majority area of northern Albania were arrested over suspicions that they had ties to crimes and had lied to prosecutors. Their cases are still pending.
About 59 percent of Albania’s population self declared as Muslim in the 2011 census, including the Bektashi Sufi order. The country also has sizable Christian Orthodox and Catholic minorities and a long history of religious tolerance.
