During an electoral campaign meeting today in Kashar, Prime Minister Edi Rama has warned the Democratic Party that the agreement between the PS and PD is off the table when the opposition doesn’t help with its votes to form the vetting institutions.
Vetting is the fundamental reason that we made the agreement. I have only this one, clear-cut thing to say to Sali [Berisha]: Sali, if the PD does not unblock with the votes of its deputies who together without our deputies have to select from the lists of experts the member of the two vetting commissions, so if the PD doesn’t unblock within the month May the vetting, the agreement is off the table.
In an extraordinary session of Parliament two days ago, the opposition proposed the names of its representatives in the three parliamentary ad-hoc committees that will select the members of the three vetting institutions, the Independent Qualification Commission (KPK), the Appeals College (KA), and the Public Commissioners.
The “unblocking” that Prime Minister Rama is referring to is supposed to happen in the first ad-hoc committee, which will draft the final list of candidates for the KPK, KA, and Commissioners. It is unclear what Rama meant with “the two vetting commissions.”
If all constitutional deadlines are respected, the vetting institutions ought to be operation before the parliamentary elections of June 25.
