Three Ministers of the Interior have resigned and one has been dismissed during the government of Edi Rama in Albania, since 2013. None of them has managed to complete the mandate leading one of the most important ministries. Edi Rama has been at the head of the Government in Albania for ten years now. Currently, he is in his third term as prime minister. Two days ago, Rama dismissed the Minister of the Interior, Bledi Çuçi, and instead proposed Taulant Balla, who is the chairman of the Parliamentary Group of the Socialist Party.

On the afternoon of July 10, the Albanian president, Bajram Begaj, decreed Prime Minister Rama's proposals for the dismissal of Çuçi and the appointment of Balla. The decrees are expected to be passed to the Assembly for approval. Experts in the field say that this ministry is considered a "hot potato", and that over the years there have been developments that have shaken the country and affected the instability of this institution.

Who were the interior ministers and why did they "go"?

Saimir Tahiri is the longest-serving minister at the head of the Ministry of Interior in the Rama Government. However, he did not manage to complete the four-year term. He was appointed head of the Interior Ministry on September 15, 2013, when the Socialists returned to power after eight years in opposition. Tahiri resigned in March 2017, three months before the end of his mandate and the next parliamentary elections, scheduled for June 25, 2017. He resigned following numerous accusations by the opposition of links to various criminal groups and abuse of power. the task.

At that time, the parliamentary majority (Socialist Party) in the Council of Mandates voted against granting the authorization for the arrest of Saimir Tahiri. The Special Prosecution Against Corruption in Albania (SPAK) accused Tahir of "involvement in drug trafficking and a structured criminal group" and "abuse of duty".

He was imprisoned on February 4, 2022. The Court of Appeal Against Organized Crime and Corruption sentenced Tahir to five years in prison. With summary judgment, the sentence was reduced to three years and four months in prison. Tahiri was convicted only for the offense of "Abuse of duty" while "escaping" the charges of "Corruption of high officials", "Trafficking of narcotic substances carried out in cooperation" and "Structured criminal group". On June 2, 2023, he was released on bail and has yet to serve another year and eight months of imprisonment.

The former senior police officer, Dritan Zagani, initially stated the accusations against Tahir for involvement "in drug trafficking and structured group" in the media. He had declared to the media that the minister's car was used for drug trafficking and that the entire leadership of the Ministry of the Interior and the State Police was in the service of drug trafficking. Saimir Tahiri was succeeded by Fatmir Xhafaj. He resigned from this post almost a year after his appointment. The opposition accused Xhafaj of being part of the former state security. Then, the opposition accused him of links to organized crime and drug trafficking, because according to the opposition subjects, he favored his brother to escape Italian justice, which had sentenced him with a final decision for drug trafficking .

After the publication of the decision of the Italian court by the opposition, Agron Xhafaj voluntarily agreed to flee to Italy to serve the sentence received for a traffic case in 2002. And immediately after that, the minister Fatmir Xhafaj resigned. After the departure of Xhafaj, General Sandër Lleshaj, who until then had been a security advisor to the Rama cabinet, was appointed to head the Ministry of the Interior. He resigned only after two years at the head of the Ministry of Interior. The cause was the numerous protests, after the incident that happened on the morning of December 8, 2020, where Klodian Rasha, 25, was killed by a police officer.

The resignation came 48 hours after protests accompanied by violence and clashes with the police in Tirana and other cities of the country, during which the police used tear gas, which was severely criticized by the opposition and the public. Sandër Lleshi's place was taken by Bledi Çuçi. His three predecessors were forced to resign, while Çuçi is the only interior minister in the Rama Government who has been dismissed from office.

Albania's prime minister, Edi Rama, fired Çuçi on July 8, three days after a video was released in the media showing several people attacking two men with baseball bats and threatening them with guns. The event took place in a bar in Borizane village of Fushë Krujë. Part of the people suspected of violence were the son and two brothers of the deputy of the Socialist Party, Rrahman Rraja. After the event, when the video had not yet been published, the Kruja police announced that they had accompanied the MP's brothers and then released them. After the publication of the video where the MP's relatives were seen with weapons and attacking the two citizens, the police declared them wanted.

The residents of Borizana have stated that they have made at least 40 complaints to the Kruja police against the owners of the quarries, but have received threats from the police chiefs that they would be arrested if they tried to stop the activity of the quarries. A few hours after these residents' denunciations in the local media, Prime Minister Edi Rama announced through a tweet about the dismissal of the Minister of the Interior, Bledi Çuçi, and the appointment of Taulant Balla, currently the chairman of the Parliamentary Group of the Socialist Party, in his place. .

Why didn't any minister complete his mandate?

Fatjona Mejdini, director for the Western Balkans of the "Global Initiative Against International Organized Crime" Network, says that the Ministry of the Interior is a ministry that was created for the first time in 2013, when Rama took power.

According to her, designed as a 'super ministry', this ministry is one of the largest, most complex to run due to the fact that some of the key sectors of the state are concentrated in it.

"Certainly the most important aspect of this ministry has been and remains that of order, and during these years there have been developments that have shaken the order in the country and as a result have affected the instability of its leaders. This ministry has been considered a 'hot potato' for all those who have run it because of this complexity", says Mejdini for Radio Free Europe.

Fatjona Mejdini sees the appointment of Taulant Balla as head of the Ministry of the Interior as an attempt to "stabilize" the direction of this department. "The appointment of Taulant Balla as a minister actually seems to be an attempt by the SP to bring a 'strong hand' and stability to this ministry. He is a figure with political experience and weight within the socialists", says Mejdini. Analyst Mentor Kikia says that changes in a government are normal, if they are based on the performance of the ministers, but in the case of the Rama Government, according to him, the situation is different.

"He who does not meet the expectations and does not fulfill the objectives of the party that the citizens have mandated, must leave. But, in the case of the Albanian Government, many ministers have been forced to stop their careers, resigning, being fired or even worse, being arrested. And the cause was corruption or even incrimination. However, none of them were arrested while they were in office, but before that they were dismissed and 'demoted' politically. I don't know if this was a coincidence or a conspiratorial cooperation of justice with the ruling party", says Kikia.

Who is Taulant Balla?

Taulant Balla was elected deputy for the first time in 2005, and since then he has not been absent from the Assembly. He is currently in his fifth term. Since 2017, he is the chairman of the Parliamentary Group of the SP. He was also the head of the Delegation of the Parliament of Albania to the European Parliament and vice-chairman of the National Council of European Integration.

For analyst Mentor Kikia, Taulant Balla is facing a difficult challenge. "Taulant Balla is expected to assume the position of Minister of the Interior at a time when the institution is at a very low point of citizens' trust, as a result of the events that have damaged the reputation of the State Police. The Fushë Kruja incident was very serious and proved that the police, if they had not been on the side of the bandits, had not been on the side of the defenseless citizens. The opposition contested his proposal by the prime minister, after accusing him of being a man connected to the world of crime. But, I think we should wait to see how Balla will perform in the position of minister, since he has never held a position in the executive, even though he is an almost veteran politician in the ranks of the socialists", emphasizes Kikia.

The opposition has opposed this appointment of Prime Minister Rama. According to the Albanian opposition, the appointment of Balla is "many times more serious than the event itself that led to the dismissal of Çuçi". The opposition accuses Balla of ties to crime and emphasizes that "the Ministry of the Interior has been handed over to organized crime and this is the capitulation of the state"./REL