A Session for MPs' Questions Without a Single Question: Breaks Ate the Opposition's Two Hours, the Ministers Were Nowhere to Be Seen

A session scheduled for opposition MPs' questions. Three hours later - not a single question asked. Instead: two one-hour breaks, heckling, insults, a middle finger shown to the opposition and a third break that Speaker Afrim Gashi called without saying when the session would resume.

It all started with the empty government benches. The coordinator of the DUI parliamentary group, Rina Ajdari, demanded that ministers come into the chamber instead of sitting in the parliament café. She has a question for Justice Minister Jeton Shasivari, announced three weeks ago, and the minister was not there. She asked for a one-hour break so the government could show up. Gashi replied that the ministers had been called and that the opposition was "cutting its own time".

That is the key. The Rules of Procedure guarantee the opposition two hours for questions. Gashi counted the break within those two hours. Then ZNAM MP Daniel Stojchevski asked for another one-hour break, claiming the prime minister and ministers had been present and that we are "the only country in the world" where the opposition calls a break on its own instrument. The opposition shouted back that they had not been there. The result: the two hours "passed", and no question was asked.

The opposition reacted sharply. Oliver Spasovski of SDSM demanded that Gashi say under which article of the Rules of Procedure a break counts as working time. Boris Krmov of Levica threatened that there would either be as many questions as the Rules provide for or no session at all, remarking that the ministers can't be bothered not only to come but even to write that they won't come. Halil Snopche of the Alliance for Albanians said democracy is not measured by the length of breaks but by the space given to the opposition. The majority, for its part, said the opposition was sabotaging its own questions and was "afraid of the truth".

The two sides can argue over who started the game. But the instrument exists for one thing: for the government to answer to Parliament. If the ministers are not in the chamber, and the break to summon them is taken out of the opposition's time, then who is holding the government to account? And how many sessions like this have to pass before MPs' questions become a formality on paper?

The context is even more telling if you look at what comes next. After the question session, the continuation of the 129th session is scheduled, with the changes to the Public Procurement Law. According to critics, they raise the threshold for purchases without a tender from 5,000 to 10,000 euros and remove the "lowest price" criterion. A law on spending public money on the agenda - on a day when nobody from the government answered a single question.