Arben Malaj Opposes Balla’s Demand Over Koçeku’s Mandate: The Constitution and the Venice Commission Protect the MP

Former MP Arben Malaj has reacted to the request made by the chairman of the Socialist Parliamentary Group, Taulant Balla, who called on MP Marjana Koçeku to give up her mandate.

According to Malaj, the Socialist Party has no legal instrument to strip Koçeku of her mandate, because she is protected by the Constitution. He says the debate that has opened up concerns a clash between the party’s morality and that of the MP herself, who has stated that the electorate has been betrayed by the Socialist Party.

In his reaction, Malaj says that “Renaissance” is revealing its true face as a political organization without integrity and with a mindset that creates enemies every day. He adds that only in structures governed by mafia-style rules should one think twice when suddenly leaving them.

Malaj also says that the “Renaissance” members no longer strike with weapons, but through aggressive, contemptuous and digital attacks, which, according to him, are even harsher than a “sweet political death.”

According to him, the MP is fully within her rights, because the Venice Commission and the Constitution clearly establish that, in constitutional terms, the mandate is solely individual.

Malaj describes this as one of the strongest and most recurring debates in constitutional law and political ethics, especially in electoral systems with closed lists, where citizens mainly vote for the party logo rather than directly for the candidate.

According to him, the clash takes place between two main principles, where the legal argument and the moral argument diverge.

From the legal and constitutional perspective, Malaj stresses that party leaders have no legal mechanism to strip the MP of her mandate.

He draws attention to the principle of the free mandate, emphasizing that Albania’s Constitution, in Article 74, as well as the principles of the Venice Commission, establish that an MP’s mandate is free and not representative, that is, not imperative.

Under this principle, an MP represents the people and not simply the party that placed them on the list.

Malaj underlines that this constitutional mechanism exists precisely to prevent MPs from being turned into “slaves” to the will of the party chairman.

If an MP reaches the conclusion that the party is violating its promises, the Constitution, according to him, gives them the right to act and vote according to their conscience, without risking having the mandate taken away by the party.

On the moral plane of the party, Malaj explains that the demand for the mandate to be surrendered is based on the logic of the closed-list system.

He argues that, on a closed list, the MP did not compete under her own name to receive preferential votes from citizens, since the votes were cast for the program, the leader and the logo of the Socialist Party.

Seen in this light, the party claims that the mandate is the result of the structures, financing, campaign and propaganda of the entire organization. For this reason, leaving while keeping the mandate is seen by it as the “theft” of the vote of Socialists who voted for the party and not the individual.

However, Malaj notes that the MP also has an equally strong moral argument for keeping the mandate.

According to him, if the party has abandoned the electoral promises with which it won the votes, the MP may claim that she is remaining in parliament precisely in order to stay faithful to those promises as an independent.

He presents this as a defense of the social contract, stressing that surrendering the mandate would lead to her replacement by the next mannequin from the party list, who would blindly vote for the violation of those promises.

In this case, according to Malaj, keeping the mandate constitutes an act of resistance and protection of the citizens who were deceived by the official program.

Although party leaders, according to him, will morally label it as “betrayal” or “undeserved independence” because of the closed list, Malaj stresses that the Constitution and parliamentary law protect the MP.

If the party has deviated from its promises, he believes that Koçeku’s decision to become an independent is in line with the essence of an MP’s mission: to be a representative of the people and of their own conscience, not simply a number on the chairman’s voting card.