Today the conference of party leaders of Parliament approved a draft resolution proposed by the Socialist Party to declare President Meta’s recent decree to cancel his previous decree “absolutely invalid.” The resolution will be discussed Thursday in during the plenary parliamentary session.
The argumentation of the draft resolution follows the line of argument circulated by the PS among the corps diplomatique in Tirana yesterday, by declaring the decree of President Meta “absolutely invalid,” claiming that the President has no constitutional right to cancel the elections. In fact, the President has merely revoked a previous decree, which only has resulted in the absence of an election date in the period set by the Electoral Code.
If the draft resolution passes in Thursday, which seems certain, it would support the position of the Central Election Commission (KQZ), which previously, following the PS’s argument, also claimed that President Meta’s decree was “absolutely invalid.” As a result, the elections would still be held on June 30, exacerbating the current political and constitutional crisis.
The draft resolution stops short of demanding the resignation of President Meta, as threatened over the weekend by Prime Minister Edi Rama. Such a decision would require a parliamentary majority of 2/3, or 93 votes, which seems currently implausible. The draft resolution in its current form merely asks President Meta to “reflect.”
Prime Minister Edi Rama later tweeted “the elections will be held on June 30.”
