Anti-Corruption Wave Forces Albanian Minister to Resign

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama pictured with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin in 2015. Wikimedia Commons.

Albanian Minister of the Interior Fatmir Xhafaj resigned without explanation on October 27, according to Gazeta Express. Prime Minister Edi Rama has since nominated Aleksander Lleshi, a former-general in the Albanian Army and the current security advisor to the prime minister, to be Xhafaj’s replacement.

Though Xhafaj has not provided any explanation for the sudden resignation, Balkan Insight reported earlier in May that the ex-minister allegedly had ties to drug trafficking in Italy through his brother. Xhafaj’s Socialist Party decried the accusations as an attempt to forestall Albania’s integration into the European Union, as these claims were made mostly by the conservative, opposition Democratic Party. Though Xhafaj acknowledged the charges made against his brother for his drug dealing crimes, he denied any involvement in them.

The Tirana Times reported that the leader of the opposition Democratic Party, Lulzim Basha, wrote on social media soon after Xhafaj’s resignation, “Fatmir Xhafaj was the only interior minister in Europe with a drug trafficker brother” and that his resignation “is an important step in our battle to clear up politics from crime.”

According to Balkan Insight, Xhafaj claimed that he was “unable to understand what problem can arise for [him] from what [his] brother did 15 years ago.” He further added that his brother had been “in the wrong place, accompanied by the wrong people.”

In his short tenure as minister of the interior, since March 2017, Xharaj tackled corruption within the police force and organized crime, according to Balkan Insight. The news outlet, however, also claims that Xhafaj has continued to be a problematic figure in Albanian politics since the 1980s, when he was repeatedly accused by the Democratic Party of abusing human rights while working beneath the Communist regime as an interrogator and for ties to drug trafficking. Xhafaj, for his part, has continued to deny all of these allegations.

Nonetheless, the timing of his resignation comes immediately after the dismantling of four major interlinked groups of drug trafficking. Balkan Insight reports that the criminals involved in these groups were also accused of buying votes for the Socialist Party, of which Xhafaj is a member.

According to Freedom House, the minister of the interior who preceded Xhafaj, Saimir Tahiri, was also connected to the Albanian-Italian drug trafficking network. He was given immunity from arrest, which acted as a setback for the parliament’s war on corruption. Freedom House also reports that the Democratic Party fears the Albanian Parliament, which is run by the Socialist Party beneath President Ilir Meta, will see a spike in corruption.