Meta on Nano, Socialists and the next president

TIRANA, April 15 – In an interview to a local newspaper Sunday Ilir Meta of the Socialist Movement on Integration spoke at length his ideas on the internal fight at the Socialist Party, Fatos Nano’s efforts toward presidency and the upcoming presidential elections.
The former premier repeated that the opposition had achieved a victory at the Feb. 18 local elections purely because of the fact that they won capital Tirana, the main challenge in the country. Meta said that the internal frictions among leaders of the main opposition Socialist Party had clearly affected achieving more positive results in certain communes in the country. He strongly and harshly turned down rumors that his SMI party had ‘sold’ itself to the center-right during the last elections.
Meta criticized the so-called ‘reformers’ at the Socials party, who are normally those leaders considered as close to Nano. He said that it was the lack of democracy at the party which obliged him and other leaders to abandon the Socialists at their congress in 2003. he said that such attempts were damaging the climate of good trust existing among the allies. Meta said that they had to acknowledge Rama’s success at the polls. He added that Nano was still unclear whether he would like more involvement at the party’s work or simply run for the president’s post. It was clear that Meta was against Nano. Meta harshly attacked Nano that if his words of conflicts in the political arena whether he was not elected president were true, and then they were a proof that he had undermined the situation. “This opposition needs more encouragement and not invent losses just to attack Rama,” he said referring to Nano’s attack on Rama.
Meta did not exclude the fact they would support the idea of fresh elections, which the opposition had strongly mentioned ahead of the local polls. Meta said however there was not behind-the-scene deals with Nano for the post of president.
Meta said the opposition as a whole had to decide together for the presidential elections, but he also added that if Bamir Topi would be supported by the whole Democratic party-led governing coalition he would be a serious contender. He made it quite clear that the opposition expected consensus by the majority for the post of president.
Meta also attacked the government’s anti-media attacks recently which he considered as an effort to hide the loss at the local elections in February. Meta said he would consider such an attack identical with that following the loss at the constitutional referendum in 1994. meta considered as arbitrary the government attacks as if they are trying to fight informal economy and tax evasion. The law on fines against businesses was also another topic which Meta said were exploited by the government only for political purposes. The former premier said that would further aggravate the conditions of the business environment. He said the law would be a good basis for further expansion of corruption among the taxation authorities, which have always been a matter of concern. Meta said that despite words the government should seriously work to create a favorable environment to the foreign investors and thus achieve a significant increase of the foreign direct investment, which are the lowest in the area. Lack of professionalism and corruption of the administration are big obstacles that hamper the investment, he said. “No investor would feel safe in a country where courts cannot defend them,” he said. Meta considered the business and economic situation as critical because of a strict policy followed by the executive. He said public investment are falling, compared to the GDP the government was showing a great inefficiency in investment.