Ilir Meta is the man who has directly or indirectly determined the outcome of all political elections since 2005, through the maneuvers and sides that he has chosen, based on his interests or political animosities.
In 2002, Ilir Meta broke away from PS after disagreements with Socialist leader Fatos Nano, against whom Ilir Meta had worked or rivaled since the early 1990s, when Fatos Nano was imprisoned.
The Socialist Movement for Integration, the party that he created after leaving PS, participated alone in the 2005 parliamentary elections, held under the majoritarian system – citizens voted directly for the respective candidates in each electoral zone and the one who won the most votes was elected deputy. The LSI candidates, with the votes dropped from the left wing, were determinants of the victory of at least 10 deputies from PD and another three from the right-wing coalition. If the LSI would have participated in a coalition with the PS, the election would have been won again for a third time, by the left-wing mandate led by Fatos Nano.
After Fatos Nano’s departure and the arrival of Edi Rama as the head of the Socialist Party, Ilir Meta was originally listed on Rama’s side. In the 2007 local elections, the PS in coalition with LSI won in Tirana and in most of the important municipalities of the country, although Sali Berisha’s government was at the peak of its splendor.
In 2008, Ilir Meta broke down with Edi Rama, as the latter and Sali Berisha changed the electoral system by introducing a regional proportional system, a system that put the small parties in disadvantage, especially LSI.
In the 2009 parliamentary elections, LSI participated in its own, thus abandoning the coalition with PS. LSI won deputies in these elections and after that joined in governance with the PD, providing together a majority of 71 deputies. At the time, it was then rumored that the agreement for post-election coalition between Ilir Meta and Sali Berisha was made before the elections, and not merely as a necessity to secure the numbers for the government.
In the 2011 local elections, LSI decided once again to stay in coalition with PD. This union brought the loss of the Tirana municipality from Edi Rama and Lulzim Basha coming as its mayor.
Two months before the end of the second mandate of the Berisha government, LSI decided to break away from the coalition and joined forces with the Socialist Party. This union brought a spectacular electoral result, giving the majority, PS and LSI more than two-thirds of seats in Parliament. LSI achieved an extraordinary result by winning 20 deputies.
In the local elections of 2015, once more, LSI lined up in the left coalition which brought PS back at the head of the Tirana Municipality. In these elections, LSI almost doubled the number of votes it took in national scale, almost 17 percent of the total.
The 2015 election’s result strongly reinforced the wide-spread public opinion that LSI and Ilir Meta are the determinants of who holds power in Albania.
This reputation and the great legal and illegal benefits coming from managing a good body of power, including some of the most important ministries and central institutions, greatly strengthened LSI’s power and created the belief that LSI would continue its empowerment and would achieve significant electoral results in the upcoming elections. There were even those who, starting from opposition’s perceived weakness, created the impression that LSI might emerge as a second force, just behind PS, in the 2017 elections.
Meanwhile, over the last four years, despite the joy from all the benefits coming from the co-governance with PS, Ilir Meta and the LSI “took care” to create the impression that they were not very happy with PS and that eventually, they could even join PD in the future. This served, on one hand, to keep PS under pressure and to get from it as many concessions in privileges and governance as possible, and on the other hand, to keep the PD lured in so they would not attack.
As a result of this ability in manipulating image and public opinion, the Rama-Meta meetings became major national events, which were blown out of proportion as events that would have almost historical consequences even though these meetings never resulted in something like that, instead they became the source of rumors and legends of the kind of “the meeting went bad and now Ilir Meta has Rama on his hands”.
Many commentators, public figures and politicians were convinced and spread everywhere the conviction that Ilir Meta would soon make political maneuvers that would change current politics.
Meanwhile beyond this ostensible nebula, the practical governing relationship between LSI-PS always went great: between them there was never any dispute or differences in attitudes about any project, contract, concession, proposal or law of any kind.
Things seem to have changed during the process of adopting justice reform. It is believed that in foreign circles, Edi Rama had presented Ilir Meta as an obstacle preventing him from fighting corruption. Given this knowledge, apparently confirmed by the cold stance on him from representatives of major Western governments – particularly his avoidance by the US Secretary of State and Assistant Secretary of State during their visits to Tirana – Ilir Meta seems to have created the conviction that Edi Rama wanted to use justice reform in order to make as a scapegoat out of him. On the other hand, rightly or wrongly, PD was convinced that justice reform was Edi Rama’s attempt to seize the justice system and then use it against them.
Under these conditions, during the last months of the reform, in summer 2016, an alliance was established between Ilir Meta and Sali Berisha in order to change the justice reform in such a way that would avoid any unilateral control by Edi Rama and above all, while maintaining some sort control from the opposition.
Although the public battle against Rama’s version of the reform was carried by PD, in fact the obstacle to its adoption was LSI, as its votes were necessary to reach the majority of 93 votes needed for the constitutional changes required for the adoption of the reform.
Edi Rama masterfully maneuvered events and foreigners to turn the opposition of PD and the LSI as a direct collision with foreigners. Under these conditions, early in the summer, Ilir Meta and Sali Berisha or Lulzim Basha decided to try to remove Edi Rama as the prime minister by a no-confidence motion in the Parliament.
But Edi Rama was, again, the most supple and managed to secure the loyalty of 71 deputies, thus making the LSI-PD no-confidence motion impossible. Among the deputies that Edi Rama persuaded to support were those with whom he had formally cut ties, Tom Doshi, Vladimir Kosta and Armando Prenga.
However, PD and LSI resisted up to the end against Rama’s version of the reform and were finally rewarded with changing its content according to PD’s demands.
This successful co-operation between PD and the LSI sparked hope among the Democrats who had been always psychologically dependent on LSI, believing that they could not return to power without their co-operation.
In the public opinion, the idea that LSI would leave the coalition with PS just a few months before the elections to run alone and then create a coalition with the PD after the elections was increasingly spreading. This idea was reinforced by LSI’s active non-participation in the in the snap elections for the municipality of Dibra and then by a series of statements from its top politicians about the spread of cannabis and the police’s responsibility for this.
It may be likely that the PD’s decision to start the resistance with the tent and to leave the Parliament may have been influenced by the expectation or perhaps the promise that LSI would use the created crisis to leave the government. But LSI abandoned this support. Most likely by the fear of electoral surprises or by the threat of Edi Rama with whatever information that he has about Ilir Meta, which seems to frighten the latter. Ilir Meta decided to stay in coalition with PS for the next mandate, accepting to take on the post of president.
PD must have felt betrayed and desperate that LSI had been pushing or supporting them to enter a rough road and then abandoned it without any warning. If that was not enough, suddenly and openly LSI leaders began to accuse the opposition’s protests directly, attacks that culminated with Monika Kryemadhi’s statements against Lulzim Basha and her call on Berisha to return as the head of PD.
These statements overwhelmed any hope of PD that LSI could help its cause and the laborious and far-reaching approach it had taken. In the toughest days for PD, LSI chose to hit it almost behind its back.
Before Edi Rama and Lulzim Basha sat down to reach an agreement, which undoubtedly sought to undo the role of LSI, Ilir Meta had played several times with them, has used them and had betrayed both. Edi Rama also keeps hostility and anger with Ilir Meta.
On the other hand, Ilir Meta and LSI are seen with fear from Edi Rama because of the possibility that the ones unpleased from his governance could end up in LSI. For years he has been trying to create an alternative to LSI by supporting PDIU, but again PDIU seemed unmatched compared with LSI.
The agreement reached between Lulzim Basha and Edi Rama seems to have a seemingly useful justification: the change of electoral law and a series of institutional arrangements in order to remove the chances of political crises. Apparently under this pretext or purpose, they have also decided to minimize the political influence of LSI and Ilir Meta.
Blocking the creation of electoral coalitions seems to be just the first step in this direction. The expected post-electoral changes are likely to create a system that avoids the influence of small parties in politics.
But the biggest blow towards Ilir Meta is not the change of the electoral law but the psychological blow – a few are the ones who today think that Ilir Meta is the key of the government, that Ilir Meta is political inevitability.
