Albania’s parliament will vote on Thursday on whether it wants to remove President Ilir Meta from power.
The no-confidence vote was called on Monday by Albania’s governing Socialist Party arguing it was unconstitutional of him to cancel the upcoming municipal elections.
Meta cancelled the June 30 poll citing the need to reduce political tensions in the country.
The move comes after the country’s opposition leader Lulzim Basha brought thousands of his supporters onto the streets of Tirana over the weekend in his push for the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama to quit.
Meta said he had acted because the circumstances did not provide “the necessary conditions for true, democratic, representative and all-inclusive elections,” which had been scheduled for the end of this month.
He added that he had made the cancellation as the crisis “undermined every chance to start accession talks with the European Union”.
The Socialists will need 94 votes to remove Meta, which they don’t have in the 140-seat parliament
But even if they succeed to get enough votes, the final decision will be taken by the Constitutional Court, which has been dysfunctional for about a year after most of its judges were fired.
Opposition protesters are calling on Prime Minister Edi Rama to step down over accusations of corruption and of manipulating elections in 2017.
Rama insists the municipal elections will go ahead as scheduled.
