FLASH NEWS
The rise and fall of Ilir Meta's party! Strong only when in power
2025-06-07 15:33:27 / POLITIKË
It was September 2004 when the Socialist Movement for Integration emerged on the scene as a different voice, promising to break the monopoly of traditional political forces. Before it, no other party that had broken away from its parent party had managed to survive.
In the first attempt, in the 2005 elections, the SMI managed to collect around 115,000 votes, which secured 5 seats in parliament.
While it withstood years in opposition (73,678 votes), the sirens of power proved to be seductive in 2009. The SMI showed that it was willing to break every taboo and set aside classic ideological divisions.
Taking advantage of the fragility of Berisha's 70-man majority, Meta's 4 deputies became determinants for the future government. While for the SMI itself, a golden opportunity to extend its influence. Its weight near the government is growing rapidly.
The effect will be clearly visible in the 2013 elections. Meta makes another strong move. Selling his party's position dearly, he leaves Berisha a few months before the elections, to take even more space from Rama.
The result is surprising: over 180 thousand votes translated into 16 mandates. Meta takes the post of Speaker of the Assembly, several ministries and dozens of directors. A power that gave her the fame that from now on she would be the undisputed political actor, on which it would depend on which way the scales of victory would lean, even in the future.
With this fame, fueled by employment in the administration, wherever it had its people, in 2017, although it competed alone, the SMI will grow further by 45 thousand votes, expanding its parliamentary group, which reaches 19 deputies.
The choice of this political force to compete alone left it out of the power pie. With Meta already at the head of state, and with the leadership of the Party passed to Monika Kryemadhi, the SMI will suffer the effects of being in opposition. Its myth as Kingmaker fell and with it its influence. Leaving parliament and abandoning the local elections, together with the Democratic Party, would be fatal.
The 2021 elections were a heavy blow for the SMI. From 19 seats in 2017, it fell to only 4 MPs, losing key positions in the Assembly and on the local field. (107538 votes, 6.81 % 4 seats)
The distance from power and internal strife, in what later took the name of the Freedom Party, crushed this political force in the May 11 race, in which it entered under the umbrella of the Democratic Party, and with Ilir Meta in prison.
The four deputies were secured thanks to their inclusion in the coalition's safe lists, while in reality, PL reached the bottom, with less than 27 thousand votes. A negative personal record for Ilir Meta as well. The only box where he received more votes than the others was the prison box, while in all of Tirana he could not even reach 8000 votes for his name. (Shqiptarja.com)
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