TIRANA, Albania — Albania’s governing left-wing coalition said it will ask Europe’s center-right parties, of which the country’s opposition is a member, to persuade the opposition to sit down to talks and take part in Albania’s parliamentary election.
Prime Minister Edi Rama of the governing Socialist Party and Parliament Speaker Ilir Meta of the Socialist Movement for Integration said Saturday that they would ask for help from the European People’s Party and European Union Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn.
The Democratic Party-led opposition said it will boycott Albania’s June 18 parliamentary election unless a caretaker government takes the country to the polls. It said the Cabinet will manipulate the vote with drug money and has declined to negotiate. Since mid-February, its supporters have blocked the main boulevard in the capital, Tirana, with a tent in front of Rama’s office.
Responding to the mediation effort, Lulzim Basha, leader of the Democratic Party, said that was not the way to resolve the situation.
“There will be no election in Albania without a technical [caretaker] government,” he said at the tent. “There won’t be any other way.”