Ethnic Greek Petro Gjikuria announces candidacy for Himare mayor
The Omonoia organization representing the ethnic Greek minority in southern Albania, and the parties of the Albanian opposition chose as their joint candidate in the repeat municipal elections of August 4 in Himare Petro Gjikuria, an ethnic Greek Albanian who lives and works in the United States.
His candidacy is expected to be officially announced in Himare in the next few hours, but Gjikuria announced it in a post on Facebook on Thursday.
“When the citizens of Himare decided to change their mayor, they were not allowed. The old mayor who lost the elections remained in the City Hall and the mayor who won the elections, Fredi Beleri, was jailed on fabricated charges. All this time, Himare basically has no mayor,” he said.
“Seeing all this and learning that municipal elections were announced for August 4, I made the decision to take a step forward, to run for Mayor and to ask the political parties, the associations and every fellow citizen to support this nomination to proceed to the next day,” he added. “We are all residents of Himara, and we must not allow anyone to divide us.”
Gjikuria will run against Vangjel Tavos from the Socialist Party. The elections of Himare were decided after Albania’s Central Electoral Commission revoked earlier this month the mandate of Fredi Beleri, another ethnic Greek, who was convicted of vote-buying and subsequently sentenced to two years in prison.
