Rama, Lakrori run for Socialist party leadership post

TIRANA, Aug 31 – Main opposition Socialist Party leader Edi Rama confirmed at their extraordinary convention of Aug. 29 that he would run again for the party’s post.
His rival would be Maqo Lakrori, a senior party official who has been keeping a low profile over the last four years.
Rama was formally suspended from the post since the meeting of the party’s assembly late last month.
But Ben Blushi, a senior leader and also a lawmaker, and Arben Malaj with the same credits, had said they aimed at competing for the party’s post. Malaj also presented his platform at the party convention Saturday but later withdrew from the race complaining they were treated as enemies by Rama.
Based on the make-up of the party leadership at the lower levels and the personality of the two contestants one could almost certainly say that Rama will be the winner of such a race.
Another party convention on Sept 26 will decide who will be the party leader for the next four years.
Rama said he aimed at taking the political grouping ahead in their fight for power in the country and to take governing Democratic Party’s Prime Minister Sali Berisha down, something which he failed to do in the June 28 parliamentary poll.
That also was the result due to his fractious dealings with Ilir Meta of the Socialist Movement for Integration who won four seats in the poll. Meta has already agreed to join the new governing coalition headed by Berisha, something which the Socialist consider treason by their former small leftist ally. Meta complains that it was Rama and his party who decided on this electoral system that had tried to sideline the small parties.
Rama said that instead it was a bazaar and that they were playing with public funding.
Blushi, on the other hand, said that the Socialists would never win in any election if Rama led the alliance, saying that his attempt had failed.
But Blushi and Malaj failed to collect enough support among the party functionaries, insisting they would continue their fight within the party to take it ahead in a new form.
The Socialists and Rama tried to tell their voters that the party came out as the winner in the polls collecting the greatest number of votes as a single grouping, but not in its coalition due to the treason from the LSI and also of results and other manipulation conducted from Berisha’s party.
The Socialists also made known all their complaints for the June 28 elections and added they would be sent to the country’s president who is also head of the High Council of Justice, the top legal institution. The opposition has also said they would make the formal legal steps to denounce them and continue investigation.
The Socialists have said they do not politically recognize the election results.
Meanwhile it is not clear whether they will boycott the parliament. A month ago they said they would not as they intended to investigate the irregularities in the voting. But a day after the convention Rama said it was up to the party’s forums to decide whether they would boycott or not the new parliament, which they considered as illegitimate.
Blushi and Malaj said they were against a boycott and also added they had not heard of such a step at the Saturday convention. A boycott would be a wrong step in the political fight.
Rama also said that the presence of the opposing voices in the party shows how democratic the Socialists and the party he has tried to reform in the last four years has developed. He just considered them a different voice in the party but not party enemies. Rama resisted their efforts to change the party’s rules that the party leader should resign if he does not come to power and not be re-elected.
All this shows that the internal life in the main opposition party is not going to be so calm in the near future.