A Tirana Court has ruled that the National Assembly of the Democratic Party called by former Prime Minister Sali Berisha on December 11, 2021 was legitimate.
In a final blow to outgoing chairman Lulzim Basha, the Court’s decision ratifies all the amendments to the party statutes voted during the Assembly, including the decision to dismiss him as leader.
The PD has been fractured since September 2021 when Basha excluded Berisha from the PD’s parliamentary group after this letter was designated by the US Department of State for corruption.
Berisha retaliated by going on a national tour to rally his supporters, and then called a meeting of the National Assembly, the party’s highest body.
The Assembly, which boasted the participation of 4,400 of the organ’s 7,600 members, voted to dismiss Lulzim Basha as leader, as well as all party leadership appointed by him. They also reversed all decisions taken by PD leadership since Berisha’s expulsion, thus reinstating this latter within the parliamentary group.
The new statutes also include provisions that the chairman of the party be removed if the PD loses national elections, and triggers a no confidence vote in the event of local election loss.
While Basha held its own National Assembly on December 18, a national referendum of PD members voted to oust him with 99% of all participating voters.
In the ensuing months, Berisha established a Refoundation Group that tried to reclaim the PD’s headquarters as their own. The action led to a violent protest, with injuries on both sides.
Basha held onto power until mid-March, when a catastrophic defeat in the latest by-elections forced him to resign as even his staunchest allies defected.
While the Central Election Commission did not recognzie Berisha’s Refoundation Group as a legitimate party, the two factions of the PD have made overtures to reconcile since Basha’s resignation.
