The secretary of the Democratic Party for Kavaja, Bledar Okshtuni, was wounded with a firearm while being at the electoral offices of the DP in Kavaja, making this the most violent episode registered before the parliamentary elections of 25 April so far. The person who shot Okshtuni is Ndriçim Jonuzi, who holds also the surname Tahiri. Jonuzi had been previously convicted in Italy, and had served 8 years in prison in Albania, says VOA. The police stated that Jonuzi is “suspected to have entered inside the electoral offices of a political party after a conflict for weak motives, and have wounded with a firearm in the leg the citizen Okshtuni, who is now in the Hospital of Durrës, under the surveillance of doctors.”
The Democratic Party reacted immediately after the episode, saying that it was provoked and politically driven. According to VOA, “the candidate for deputy of PD, Grida Duma which covers exactly the area of Kavaja, said that Jonuzi, accompanied by two other people in the uniform of the Municipal Police, asked Okshtuni to remove the car and then entered the electoral office and shot him. According to Ms. Duma, the aggressor Jonuzi is also a businessman who has won tenders from the Municipality of Kavaja, which is run by the Socialists.”
The leader of the DP went after the incident in Kavaja, declaring that “Kavaja has faced a serious event, an assassination attempt against the DP, against the Alliance for Change, by a Prime Minister who knows that on Sunday will lose, and Kavaja and Albania will win.” President Meta also travelled to Kavaja, and accompanied by Duma declared that the Prime Minister did not have any respect for the constitution, and urged him to go to SPAK. “You should reflect and go to SPAK to confess! […] Every person that makes a political crime will have to respond. There are no mitigating circumstances.”
Prime Minister Edi Rama also condemned the event, considering it “intolerable,” adding that “the perpetrator should be handcuffed as soon as possible! The politicization of this event is as bad as the event itself! Lulzim Basha must join me to support justice without inciting tension, while Ilir Meta must stop the idiotic campaign of tension!”, wrote Rama on Twitter.
