Albanian opposition lawmakers violently disrupted a parliamentary session to protest the imprisonment of a fellow legislator, according to AP News.
The conservative Democratic Party has long accused the ruling Socialist Party of seizing all power. Democrats threw microphones off tables, tossed objects at the speaker of parliament and government ministers and burned chairs.
They said Ervin Salianji’s prison sentence was politically motivated. The MPs also called for protests that they said would block the capital Tirana starting next week.
In 2018, Salianji demanded the resignation of then Socialist Party Interior Minister Fatmir Xhafaj after a video was circulated in which two men claimed his brother was involved in illegal activities.
The files and recordings they offered turned out to be fabricated and they have since fled the country. Salianji was charged with defamation, with an appeal court upholding his sentence of a year in prison last week.
Parliament Speaker Elisa Spiropali said the chair-burning was a sign of “disrespect for the citizens, the law and the institutions of the democratic state.” Meanwhile, Democrat leader Sali Berisha, who is under house arrest on corruption charges, said the protest was the start of the opposition’s struggle to regain power ahead of parliamentary elections next year.
Technical Cabinet. Free elections. Rotation. Opposition’s victory.
There was a sharp split in the opposition after Berisha and his family members were banned from entering the United States in 2021 and the UK in 2022 over alleged involvement in corruption.
The Socialists have 73 deputies in the 140-member chamber and pass almost any bill easily.
