On Friday, the Municipal Council of Himara appointed deputy mayor Blerina Bala to lead the coastal town after acting mayor Jorgo Goro and the elected one, Fredi Beleri, are in prison.
The Municipal Council meeting was accompanied by tensions when a group of supporters of Fredi Beleri demanded loudly and insultingly that Socialist deputy Blendi Klosi and the prefect of Vlora County, Vangjel Tavo, should not be in the room where the councilors had gathered.
After police presence in the room to reduce tensions and a short interruption, the councilors conducted the meeting behind closed doors in another municipality environment, without the participation of citizens.
Although the Socialists have 9 votes in the Municipal Council, Deputy Mayor Blerina Bala was elected with 15 votes in favor and four against, receiving votes even from opposition councilors.
Prime Minister Edi Rama reacted after the meeting of the Municipal Council of Himara through a post on the social network X, considering the vote for Blerina Bala as acting mayor as “a positive development for the continuation of the work of local government”.
The vote of the councilors in Himara came after the resignation of the acting mayor of the municipality, Jorgo Goro, who was arrested by the Special Prosecutor’s Office for property embezzlement, and after the conviction of the elected mayor Fredi Beleri by the First Instance Special Court for active corruption in elections.
Goro was arrested a few days earlier under suspicion that he allowed the irregular registration of two coastal immovables through falsified documents, which, after several transactions, were transferred to entrepreneur Artan Gaçi, husband of former Foreign Minister Olta Xhaçka, to build a tourist complex on the coast of Dhërmi. Goro has denied the allegations of the Prosecutor’s Office.
Investigations into this case began after a complaint made in August last year by the elected mayor of Himara, Fredi Beleri.
Beleri, who was declared the winner in the municipality of Himara in last year’s local elections, failed to take office after being arrested by the police two days before the local elections and has been sentenced by the First Instance Court against Corruption and Organized Crime to two years in prison for active corruption in elections.
The case of Beleri, the opposition candidate in the local elections and representative of the Unity for Human Rights Party, which defends the interests of the Greek minority, has visibly strained relations between Albania and Greece.
Initially, Athens demanded his release, claiming violations of minority rights. Later, it spoke of violations of political rights, insisting that Beleri should be given the right to take the oath.
The requests of the elected mayor to enable him to do so have been dismissed by Albanian courts, while the country’s authorities have adhered to the position that the matter belongs to the judiciary, and they cannot intervene.
