Rama’s intransigence and the next election
The first round in the case of Fredi Beleri, the imprisoned ethnic-Greek mayor-elect of Himare, ended with him remaining in custody, despite Greece’s mobilization at the international level, and with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama sticking to his intransigent attitude.
The three-month deadline, stipulated by Albanian law, for Beleri to be sworn into office after being elected expired on August 14. There are those, however, who argue that the time should start being counted on June 27, when the city council met for the first time, and, therefore, the deadline expires at the end of September. But Rama is the one holding all the cards. Beleri was not able – in fact he was not allowed – to attend the swearing-in ceremony and take the oath, so now new municipal elections will be announced. Their timing will be decided by the government, which can expand, depending on its plans, the electoral law that otherwise calls for a new vote within 45 days.
Will Beleri be a candidate again? Theoretically, he still has that right to run, since his criminal record remains clean, but Rama’s plan almost certainly foresees his exclusion. How? Through the justice system itself.
Beleri’s trail will likely be set before the election and, despite an apparent lack of convincing evidence – according to the defense – he will be convicted of vote-buying, which will taint his criminal record and thus prevent him from running. It is not impossible, however, that Rama may arrange for Beleri to be released before the trial takes place, so as to contain the anger of the Greek minority and present an image of magnanimity to the international community. But even though he will be free, he will not be allowed to stand in the elections. Rama will persist with his plan to neutralize Beleri politically, which is something he sought from the first moment the ethnic Greek’s candidacy was announced in Himare.
In this case, the ball will be in Himare’s court and in that of the ethnic minority’s representatives, who will be asked to decide if they will participate in the new elections and with whom, or if they will abstain, cutting off any connection with the central government in Tirana.
Rama, for his part, according to Albanian analysts following the developments, will seek, in the event of repeat elections, a candidate among the ethnic Greeks that will be as unifying as possible, to split Beleri’s supporters. In this way, he will remove Beleri and, most importantly, he will control the Municipality of Himare and regulate, to the benefit of interests close to him and his party, the hot-button issue of the properties of ethnic Greeks and more generally all tourist properties along the so-called Albanian Riviera, as the country’s opposition has been arguing.
Himare’s ethnic-Greek minority escalated its reactions with a protest rally in the town’s main square on August 14th. The content of the protest and especially of the speeches of the mayors of Athens and Thessaloniki, who demanded the immediate release and swearing-in of Beleri, seem to have angered Rama. A few hours later, in a lengthy post on the internet, the Albanian prime minister said he was “speechless” and accused Athens of “surreal interference in an issue handled by the Albanian justice.” Commenting on Rama’s comments, independent analyst Andi Bushati wrote on website Lapsi.al about a “ridiculousness that harms Albania.” Edi Rama, he suggested, has painted himself into a corner making the decision for Beleri to be arrested just days before the May 14 election. “On the one hand, he knows that he is scoring points among those Albanians who do not respect the people who consider Himare Greek. On the other, this victory of the nationalist populist risks coming at a very big price,” Bushati wrote. “The Albanian prime minister seems to be feeling this concern, which is increasingly striking a chord in Brussels and Washington. Realizing that this anger reached boiling point with the protest in Himare, the prime minister chose to justify himself with an open letter, written more to be read in Athens than in Tirana.”
The specter of 1994
Developments are ongoing in Himare but the future of the ethnic-Greek minority and Greek-Albanian relations appear to be in a grey area right now. The risk of a new setback similar to that of 1994, when five members of the ethnic-Greek Omonoia organization were tried and sentenced to between six and eight years in prison on charges of treason because they demanded that “Northern Epirus” (as they called southern Albania) be ceded to Greece, appears not unlikely. The minority emerged from that crisis – which was not helped by Athens’ wrong moves – injured and took years for it to recover – if it ever did. Now, in the Beleri case, there doesn’t seem to be a way out.
Once the elections are over, the case will be closed for Rama, having installed a friendly mayor at the helm of the Himare municipality and Beleri probably free but “disarmed.” Then the search for answers on what went wrong will begin, and the blame will not only lie on the Albanian side.
