TIRANA – It has become ridiculous the discourse on the dismissal of President Ilir Meta as the ruling Socialist Party (SP) top leaders have continued to show themselves before the public opinion with the Shakespearian dilemma: to dismiss or not the head of state.
A vote in Parliament on a report of an investigation Committee into the alleged constitutional violations of the President, which withdrew the dismissal request by the votes of 78 deputies with 17 votes against and 8 abstentions on Monday, put an end to an ‘immoral game’ as an opposition MP called the scenario in the parliamentary plenary session.
President Meta should be fired, SP Prime Minister Edi Rama, the main actor in this comedy declared in Parliament but such a decision cannot be made because of the Venice Commission which, as Rama said, ‘Meta’s violations are not so serious’.
“We think that Meta should be fired, but we are not like you. We do not say that we are the only ones who do as we like,” said Rama, basing his ‘pardoning’ of the President on what Venice Commission had ruled on Meta’s actions as head of state.
Rama, who is also head of the SP, expressed his suspicion on the rightness of the decision of the judges of the Venice Commission insisting that “we (SP) are right”.
The SP head was furious against Meta accusing him of turning the presidential office into headquarters of one party (DP) and a ‘source of fire’ using the Constitution as a piece of paper and his anger at the majority as a ramification. He could not believe before that Meta would become bad for Albania through his acts of vandalism against the Constitution. According to Rama, the current head of state has behaved totally different from his predecessors surpassing the constitutional framework.
Rama ended his consecutive drama by saying: “So, Ilir Meta deserves to be fired, but as long as we have this recommendation of Venice, then we respect it.”
But there was a voice in the parliamentary opposition denouncing the scenario and that was the lawmaker, Elda Hoti who called ‘an immoral game to harm the head of state’ all what has taken place.
Ms. Hoti considered the scenario a trap set against the President whose target was that PM Rama becomes president while the opposition Democratic Party (DP) head, Lulzim Basha takes the premier’s seat. “This bargain has been made public by the DP leader, something which shows that the entire event was an immoral game with a political background and huge infidelity,” she said.
Ms. Hoti got the mandate of a deputy on 11.03.2019 being on the list of the Socialist Movement for Integration which along with DP gave up the parliamentary mandates, but not all the deputies in the lists abided by the decision of the parties to whom they belonged.
“The parliamentary investigation committee set up to probe into President Meta should apologize to him and parliament for involving it into an unconstitutional and illegal action for which this committee was established,” said Hoti.
President Ilir Meta accused Prime Minister Edi Rama of attempting an institutional coup d’etat unveiling last February a number of manoeuvres undertaken over the past two years. President published a list of actions and events that, according to him, showed the government’s endeavor to concentrate power in the PM’s hands. /argumentum.al
