TIRANA, May 23 (Xinhua) -- The Albanian parliament adopted Monday night at an extraordinary session the new cabinet which for the first time ever consists of both majority and opposition representatives.
After three months of boycott, the Albanian opposition lawmakers returned to parliament Monday afternoon to join their votes with the majority and approved the removal of deputy prime minister and six other ministers as well as their replacement by six caretaker ministers, all opposition's nominees.
The approval of the new cabinet came in pursuit of the agreement reached on May 18 between Prime Minister Edi Rama and Democratic Party leader Lulzim Basha to end the boycott and make opposition enter elections on June 25.
Under the political accord, the parliament also approved the "Vetting" law which paves the way to the establishment of the ad-hoc commissions in the framework of the justice reform.
According to Edi Rama, the approval of such law which had been blocked for several months marked a great milestone for Albania's justice system. He said that the justice reform will start being implemented soon.
Thus, both ruling majority and opposition lawmakers voted to create vetting bodies tasked with evaluating the backgrounds of around 800 judges and prosecutors, a key request from the European Union (EU) before agreeing to launch membership negotiations with Albania.
The Albanian legislators also voted the amendments to the criminal code as part of election reform.
With 123 votes pro, majority and opposition MPs voted to toughen the penalties for election-related crimes such as ballot-selling and buying, misuse of police authority and making unreported campaign contributions.
All were made crimes punishable by a maximum of seven years' imprisonment, the new Criminal Code defines.
With the approval of the new cabinet, the opposition will control the interior, justice, labor, finance, health and education ministries and will also have a deputy prime minister. And this has been seen as a guarantee to holding a free and fair elections.
