Kastriot Islami

Selman Kastriot Islami ( born August 18, 1952 in Tirana) is an Albanian politician of the Socialist Party of Albania since 1991 and deputy in the Albanian parliament.

Education and work

His studies completed Islami at the Faculty of Science of the University of Tirana. Between 1981 and 1985 he obtained a doctorate in atomic and molecular physics at the University of Paris-Sud. At the Justus -Liebig- University Giessen, he took a postgraduate studies.

Kastriot Islami held various positions at the Faculty of Science, University of Tirana, among other things, he was for a time her dean.

Political career

Islami was appointed as Chairman of Parliament in 1991. A year later, on 3 April 1992 Islami had to take over the presidency after the last communist president Ramiz Alia had given his resignation. This office he held, however, held only for three days. When the Democrats won in 1992 the first free elections in Albania, the former student leader Sali Berisha became the successor of Islami as head of state. Then it was quiet again to Kastriot Islami. Only when the Socialists won the elections of 1997, Islami held back government offices, including between 1997 and 1998 as Minister of State, April to October 1998 as Deputy Prime Minister from 2002 to 2003 as the Minister of Finance. From 2003 to 2005, when the Democrats were able to win the elections, he also served as foreign minister.

Role in the political crisis from 2009

Albania fell after the parliamentary elections of June 2009 in a deep political crisis, which continues today. Among other things, the boycott of Parliament by the Socialists from the summer of 2009 was one of the basic factors that ushered in the crisis. As on May 26, 2011, the Parliament again assembled for the first time after the local elections to Islami opposed along with his party colleagues Andis Harasani the call for a boycott of party leader Edi Rama. They both acted as only the opposition. Since then, the already tense intra-party relations between Rama and the two deteriorated. The Socialist Party threatened the two deputies even with the exclusion.