Albania PM Removes Ministers 'To Focus On Election'

Three months ahead of parliamentary elections on June 18, Albania's Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama announced the departure of four ministers, allegedly to focus on the upcoming election campaign.

Rama named the four as Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri, Health Minister Ilir Beqaj, Youth and Social Welfare Minister Blendi Klosi and Local Issues Minister Bledi Cuci.

"The changes in government reflect the need for our [Socialist] leaders in the campaign for the June 18 election to focus on new energies and be near the people," he said on Facebook.

Rama later disclosed the replacements in cabinet as Fatmir Xhafaj, in the Interior Ministry, Olta Xhacka, at Youth and Social Welfare, Ogerta Manastirliu, at Health, and Eduard Shalsi, at the Local Issues Ministry.

During the announcement, Rama insisted that the changes did not come on the request of the junior party in government, the Socialist Movement for Integration, LSI, nor were they made as a concession to the Democratic Party-led opposition.

"In the last 24 hours, you will have heard a lot of conspiratorial theories over these changes," Rama said. "The four ministers depart with my positive evaluation for all the work that they have done during these three-and-a-half years in government," he said.

The changes seemed unlikely to budge Democratic Party chief Lulzim Basha who along with his supporters has been staging a street protest in a tent in the main boulevard of Tirana in front of the Prime Minister's building, calling on him to resign.

Hundreds of opposition supporters have gathered every day in the tent where Basha has said that the protest will end only when a technical government - without Rama as PM - takes over and guides the country into what he calls a fair and...

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