During their first meeting since the Chair of Democratic Party, Lulzim Basha, decided to expel former PM Sali Berisha from the party’s parliamentary group, the US ambassador to Albania, Yuri Kim confirmed that the position and approach held by the United States towards DP hasn’t changed.
Ambassador Kim stated that even though the Democratic Party is going through a tough time, after Berisha’s ousting, she hopes and expects that DP comes out stronger on the other side and be able to win another election.
“As you all know, the American government has had a strong relationship with DP right from the beginning. We were there, when DP came to power for the first time and we hope to be in a position, once again to celebrate when they regain power. Democracy is defined by the existence of a viable strong opposition party,”- said the US ambassador.
The US ambassador continued by outlining the 3 main priorities, where the opposition should focus on, being the electoral reform, the territorial reform and the fight against corruption.
“There’s a lot of work to be done in the days and weeks and months ahead. It’s essential and it’s great that the Democratic Party is back in parliament in full force. There are actions that need to be taken to ensure better elections next time. To address the deficiencies that have been identified in the ODHIR report. There’s also work to be done in the territorial reform, and work to be done against corruption. All of this requires a strong united democratic party that is moving forward, you cannot move forward with one foot stuck in the past,”- said the US ambassador.
The territorial reform is one of the issues that Basha has brought back to the attention and he has also called it one of the main goals of DP in the new parliament. This reform was adopted back in 2014, after a unilateral vote by the Socialist MPs, because DP chose to abandon the roundtable, leading to a 61-municipality system.
The opposition continued to criticize this division of the territory by accusing SP of only doing this in order to have the reform work in their favour, during the next local elections.
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