TIRANA, June 23 – Albanian President Ilir Meta called the parliament’s start of procedures to dismiss him from office after he signed a decree that cancelled June 30 as the local elections date a “fake process, blindly oriented politically.”
Responding to the letter sent by the Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission of Laws Ulsi Manja regarding the beginning of the dismissal process, the Presidency specified that “the decree is taken in full support of the constitutional provisions and in defense of the fundamental principles deriving from them. This decree is in force and is published in the Official Gazette on June 11 and is consequently known and mandatory for implementation by all, including Parliament.”
In the president’s response it is underlined that the head of state’s “important act interrupted a fictional electoral process practically transformed into a voting process, without competition and without alternative.”
Consequently, “all the current parliamentary activity that strives to interrupt the activity of the President of the Republic, but without being able to overthrow the content of his decree, is a fake process, unsupported in constitutional arguments but only blindly oriented politically .”
Meta’s letter goes further. stating that “this fake and blind political process does not serve at all to solve the deep crisis in the country, but rather it exacerbates it.”
The Socialist majority has considered the President’s decree as “an act of open violation of the Constitution”. The dismissal procedures started at the request of the 55 Socialist MPs, and they foresee some procedures that require their time.
Following the assessment of the Laws Commission, it is expected that the Parliament will then decide on setting up an Investigation Commission that will also need to hear the President’s arguments.
Afterwards, the committee’s report goes to parliament. Approval of the dismissal requires a majority of 2/3 of the members of parliament. The majority alone does not have these votes, and will have to win over the support of new opposition MPs in the hall. The last word, however, belongs the Constitutional Court. The latter is still out of function, with only one of nine mandatory members.
Meta signed the decree canceling the June 30 local elections arguing Albania is heading towards an undemocratic process, with many of the municipalities represented with only one candidate due to the opposition’s early-February resignation.
The opposition’s Democratic Party and Socialist Movement for Integration resigned their parliamentary mandates in February and have been protesting ever since against Prime Minister Edi Rama’s government, which they accuse of vote buying and ties to organized crime and demand its resignation and the establishment of a caretaker government.
