Right-wing opposition legislators in Albania set fire to chairs outside parliament on Monday in protest against the sentencing of their colleague, Ervin Salianji, to one year in prison.
Salianji, a member of the centre-right Democratic Party, was convicted of “false testimony” in a drug trafficking case involving the brother of a Socialist parliamentarian.
Judges suspected some opposition members of fabricating recordings in this case.
In a public statement, Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama praised the court’s ruling in a case that shocked public opinion years ago.
However, the opposition views Salianji’s arrest and conviction as “a blind act of political vengeance and terror” by Prime Minister Rama.
Gazmend Bardhi, head of the Democratic Party’s parliamentary group, said the opposition would continue their fight against the Prime Minister, holding him solely responsible for the situation.
Democratic Party parliamentarians urged Albanians to gather in large numbers in Tirana on 7 October at 18:00 to protest “against the injustices of Prime Minister Edi Rama.”
Protesters are expected to block roads across the country.
Democratic Party leader and former Prime Minister Sali Berisha called the 7 October protest “the battle of our lives.”
Berisha himself is under house arrest, accused of passive corruption linked to the privatisation of a football field in the capital.
He has denied the charge, calling it “a politically motivated trial by Edi Rama” ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections.
The next parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held in Albania by June 2025. At the last polls, held in 2021, the Socialist Party won 74 of the 140 seats in parliament, while an alliance headed by the Democratic Party won 59, while the remaining seats went to two smaller parties.
