{"id":1488917,"date":"2022-05-23T18:00:38","date_gmt":"2022-05-23T22:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1488917"},"modified":"2022-05-23T18:00:41","modified_gmt":"2022-05-23T22:00:41","slug":"anti-communist-icon-sali-berisha-retakes-control-of-albanias-center-right-democratic-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/anti-communist-icon-sali-berisha-retakes-control-of-albanias-center-right-democratic-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-Communist Icon Sali Berisha Retakes Control of Albania\u2019s Center-Right Democratic Party"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fanti-communist-icon-sali-berisha-retakes-control-of-albanias-center-right-democratic-party%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1488917&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div id=\"\">\n<div class=\"Article__Headline\">\n<p class=\"Article__Headline__Desc\">Albania\u2019s main opposition center-right Democratic party says controversial former president and prime minister Sali Berisha has been re-elected to lead the party after a nine-year hiatus, pledging to bring it back to power<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"Article__Header__Meta\">\n<section class=\"Byline flex items-center\">\n<div class=\"Byline__Content\">\n<p><span class=\"Byline__ByCopy\" aria-hidden=\"true\">By<\/span><span aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"Byline__AuthorRow\"><span class=\"Byline__AuthorContainer\"><span class=\"Byline__Author\"> LLAZAR SEMINI Associated Press<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"Byline__TimestampWrapper\">\n<p>May 23, 2022, 12:13 PM<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Byline__Bullet\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u2022 <\/span>2 min read<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"Share flex flex-no-wrap Article__Header__Share\"><button aria-label=\"Share to Facebook\" class=\"Button Button--default Button--icon-noLabel Share__Item Share__Item--facebook\" tabindex=\"0\"><span class=\"Share__Text\">Share to Facebook<\/span><\/button><button aria-label=\"Share to Twitter\" class=\"Button Button--default Button--icon-noLabel Share__Item Share__Item--twitter\" tabindex=\"0\"><span class=\"Share__Text\">Share to Twitter<\/span><\/button><button aria-label=\"Email this article\" class=\"Button Button--default Button--icon-noLabel Share__Item Share__Item--email\" tabindex=\"0\"><span class=\"Share__Text\">Email this article<\/span><\/button><\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p id=\"_ap_link_party_GreenParty_\">TIRANA, Albania &#8212; Albania\u2019s main opposition center-right Democratic <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/alerts\/GreenParty\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">party<\/a> said on Monday that controversial former president and prime minister Sali Berisha has been re-elected as its leader, nine years after he last held the post, and is pledging to bring the party back to power.<\/p>\n<p>Berisha, 77, won overwhelmingly with 93.45% of the party&#8217;s membership vote on Sunday to become the leader again and said he would \u201csave Albania from a regime it does not deserve.\u201d However, his support from members was not replicated among the party&#8217;s lawmakers, where he received the support of only a minority.<\/p>\n<p>Berisha&#8217;s rival, Ibsen Elezi, had asked for a postponement of the voting, claiming irregularities.<\/p>\n<p>The Democrats&#8217; top post has been empty since March when Lulzim Basha resigned following divisive infighting after he fired Berisha from the parliamentary group.<\/p>\n<p>Basha acted after last year U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken designated Berisha and his close family members persona non grata for \u201ccorrupt acts that undermined democracy in Albania\u201d during his 2005-2013 tenure as prime minister.<\/p>\n<p>Basha&#8217;s actions sparked an internal party fight, with Berisha creating a group seeking to remove Basha from his post, accusing him of being a \u201chostage\u201d of Prime Minister Edi Rama of the left-wing Socialist Party.<\/p>\n<p>In January, Democratic Party supporters clashed with each other as they tried to storm their party headquarters.<\/p>\n<p>Berisha was the country\u2019s president from 1992 until he resigned in 1997 following a countrywide antigovernmental protest after many people lost their life savings in failed pyramid investment schemes supported by Berisha\u2019s government.<\/p>\n<p id=\"_ap_link_election_Elections_\">He came back to power in 2005 and ran as prime minister until he lost in parliamentary <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/alerts\/Elections\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">election<\/a>s in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Since the designation by Washington he has strongly re-entered the country\u2019s politics with the backing of his old supporters, despite his age.<\/p>\n<p>Washington has made it clear it will not cooperate with Albania\u2019s Democratic Party if it is led by Berisha. There has been no reaction from the U.S. Embassy so far.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Follow Llazar Semini at https:\/\/twitter.com\/lsemini<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Albania\u2019s main opposition center-right Democratic party says controversial former president and prime minister Sali Berisha has been re-elected to lead the party after a nine-year hiatus, pledging to bring it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":498,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1488917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1488917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1488917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1488917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1488917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}