Rama becomes target of political fight

TIRANA, July 15 – Opposition Socialist Party leader and Tirana Mayor Edi Rama has become these days the main target of the political fight in the country.
Socialists have up ’til now, based on preliminary results, won 66 seats while the governing Democrats of Prime Minister Sali Berisha 70 seats (including two from the Republican and the Justice and Integration parties). Four others are with the Socialists Movement for Integration of Ilir Meta.
The result of the election is a split Parliament that can hardly be called stable. That means there will be a weak government and also a harsh political fight, often turning into an obstacle for many laws to be passed in the parliament.
That does not seem the main issue these days. One only hears about the delay of the vote count at the Central Elections Commission; the fight between the two main parties to grab any seat from each other.
But the other main discussion is that Rama should resign.
That is heard naturally from Berisha, calling on Rama to accept the result and also show he is a democrat through resigning from his post.
That call is supported by the SMI leaders, starting with Meta and many others who say he, Rama, is the one to blame for the loss of the leftist coalition.
There are also voices from within the leftist coalition, such as those of the Social Democrats and Social Democracy Party, blaming Rama on not calculating well the voting and also of sidelining the other smaller political groupings in the coalition.
But the difference between the two major parties was so small that the result was almost a draw. The new electoral system, adopted in December 2008, was proportional on a regional basis, with the country divided between twelve regions.
That supports Rama saying that for the moment his principal goal is to make countable and transparent any vote cast by the voters and looking to get more seats in the re-count system.
But he may also well say that the party’s status has improved and he should not resign because the Socialists now have 66 seats from 42 it had in the previous parliament.
Rama has also mentioned whenever he speaks at news conferences that the Socialist Party is, nationwide, the first party with the majority of the votes.
There may also be another option. Rama resigns and he is re-elected again to the top of the party. It is believed that the party’s leadership is made up of many of his supporters.
For the moment Albanians see that this situation has forced a coalition between the right-wing Democratic Party and the left-wing party Socialist Movement for Integration. Other left-wing parties, especially the main opposition Socialists, have gone so far as to call this coalition immoral.
This coalition will be a hard test for the Albanian democracy.