TIRANA, March 22 – Opposition leader Lulzim Basha continued his Washington trip this week by meeting with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, unveiling the Democratic Party’s concerns over election standards, decriminalization and justice reform.
After the meeting, Basha said he had received guarantees that the United States will help Albania organize free and fair elections.
“The United States will assist Albania in guaranteeing a free and fair election process, just like they are carefully monitoring the implementation of the decriminalization law and the justice reform,” Basha wrote on Facebook.
Basha accused the ruling Socialist Party-led government of “having ties with the criminal world and that the criminal element is the government’s last hope to compromise the next general elections.”
Part of the discussion between Basha and Nuland was also the threat by Prime Minister Edi Rama to hold early elections in case the justice reform doesn’t go through, which the opposition leader scoffed as “a bluff by the Prime Minister.”
“We discussed this ridiculous stance by the government, which pretends to be interested in the adoption of the justice reform, but in fact it’s not doing anything about it. It has been two weeks now that it refuses political dialogue with the aim to sabotage justice reform based on the Venice Commission recommendations,” Basha said.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Edi Rama said that the government had ‘a plan
B’ in case consensus was not reached with the opposition over the most important reform in the country, namely the justice reform.
During his U.S. visit, the opposition leader also met with the World Bank Executive Director representing Albania Patrizio Pagano, sharing opposition’s concerns over the increase in public debt, the bankruptcy of thousands of small businesses as a result of government policies and arbitrariness, and also corruptive concession agreements. Basha highlighted that Albania has the highest tax burden in the region, which has made the country unattractive for foreign investments, also leading many foreign investments already present to abandon the country.
Basha presented Pagano with the Democratic Party economic platform which foresees a flat tax set at 9 percent and a VAT at 15 percent, while stressing the special attention given to the agricultural sector.
Meanwhile, the World Bank Executive Director evaluated the fact that the Albanian opposition has a concrete plan for the country’s development.
Basha also held meetings with leaders of Vatra, the Pan Albanian Federation of America in New York, where he listed the three proposals by the Democratic Party aimed at eliminating electoral corruption. Electronic voting, setting a limit to election campaign funding and strict auditing of political party expenditures were the key requests mentioned by the opposition leader.
The official visit of Democratic Party chairman Lulzim Basha to the United States also included meetings with U.S. congressmen and high officials of the Atlantic Council.
