Albanian opposition seeks resignation of parliament speaker

TIRANA, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- Albania's largest opposition party, the Democratic Party (DP), requested Speaker of Parliament Gramoz Ruci to resign on Thursday, claiming that he violated the Constitution by electing a temporary prosecutor general.

Head of the DP parliamentary group Edmond Spaho said in a press release that in the last plenary session in 2017, Prime Minister Edi Rama, with the approval of Ruci, allowed the election of Arta Marku as new interim prosecutor general against the law.

Marku, 41, was elected as interim prosecutor general with 69 votes from the ruling Socialist Party.

The DP considered the voting of Marku as a constitutional coup, noting that the election of a temporary prosecutor general was done with a simple majority at a time when Albania's Constitution requires three-fifths of votes in parliament.

The DP also said that the job of naming a new attorney general should fall to the prosecutor's office high council instead of the premier and should be installed once some 800 judges and prosecutors are vetted.

Spaho said Marku's election offered political and illegal protection to Rama and his friends.

"Under these conditions, the opposition cannot allow the permanent violation of the Constitution and the delegitimization of the institutions," he said.

The Albanian opposition has announced a new wave of protests on Jan. 27 against Marku's election. Enditem