Lawmakers from Albania’s center-right opposition Democratic Party disrupted a session of the legislature on Thursday by tossing firecrackers, building chair barricades, and physically confronting members of the governing Socialist Party.
The opposition said it was protesting authoritarian rule by the Socialists, while the Socialists claimed their opponents were trying to distract attention from corruption charges against Democratic leader Sali Berisha, who was formerly prime minister and president of Albania.
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The legislative session in Tirana proceeded despite the disruptions. The Socialists, who hold 73 of the 140 seats, were able to hold votes on 21 draft laws.
Berisha expressed disappointment that the Socialists did not “respect” what he called a “temporary strike” against the authoritarianism of the “shameful parliament.”
“It is a budget for people associated with the Socialist Party. Therefore, on the day when the budget is discussed, the Socialist Party has a holiday to eat baklava,” opposition member Ervin Salianji explained.
In other words, because the Socialists were trying to pass a budget that only benefited themselves, Salianji decided to give them the day off by filling the well of the legislature with chairs and waving a purple smoke flare around.
“Day by day we are escalating the parliamentary action and we will escalate every other action,” he vowed.
Berisha’s party has been staging disruptions ever since prosecutors accused him of involvement in a corrupt land-buying scheme two weeks ago.
Berisha is 79, with a 50-year-old son-in-law named Jamarber Malltezi. Malltezi was arrested on October 21 at the airport in Rinas, Albania on charges of corruption and money laundering.
According to prosecutors, Berisha used his power and influence as a legislator and former prime minister to privatize a sports complex and then sell it to Malltezi at a sweetheart price, using a businessman named Fatmir Bektashi as an intermediary. The deal has been under investigation for the past three years.
In May 2021, the U.S. government sanctioned Berisha for corruption. Berisha, his wife, and his children were all banned from visiting the United States. In July 2022, the United Kingdom imposed a similar ban.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said when announcing the sanctions that Berisha “was involved in corrupt acts, such as misappropriation of public funds and interfering with public processes, including using his power for his own benefit and to enrich his political allies and his family members.”
“Former President of Albania Sali Berisha’s corrupt acts undermined democracy in Albania,” Blinken said.
Berisha resigned as leader of the Democratic Party in 2013 after the Socialists came into power, but recently began a comeback that has sharply divided the party rank and fire. He claims he and his son-in-law are innocent, and the charges are politically motivated.
“[Prime Minister] Edi Rama thinks that engaging his prosecution against me and arresting my family members as political opponents, at the moment when the opposition has started more determined than ever the battle without return for the restoration of full and political pluralism, the return of free voting, and the rescue of Albania from the regime of the first and only narco-state in Europe, will be able to restrain, hit the opposition action,” Berisha said last week.
The Democratic party has in turn accused Socialist Interior Minister Taulant Balla of being tied to organized crime.
Albania has been battling chronic corruption problems ever since it emerged from Soviet communism in 1991. Berisha was the fourth high-ranking Albanian official to be banned from entering the United States due to corruption allegations.