875.00/163
The Minister in Albania (Grant-Smith) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 10.]
Sir: I have the honor to report that after protracted negotiations between the various political groups M. Peci, acting as the “High Council of Regency” signed on the 13th instant a decree calling for elections for a legislative body to be held from December 20th to January [Page 314] 20th next. Notwithstanding the fact that the Constituent Assembly which adjourned in May last had constituted itself into a “regular” Parliament [which?] has never been dissolved, nor [and] that none of the acts of the present régime nor [or] of the sole Regent remaining since the last revolution have been legal according to the terms of the Provisional Constitution of Lushnia, they go merrily along choosing such phrases from the Constitution as suits their purposes for the moment and ignoring the rest.
It is a provisional government sitting at a provisional capital acting illegally under a provisional constitution. The anomaly will be further accentuated after [apparent omission] through the expiration on that date of the term of office of H. E. M. Sotir Peci, sole remaining Regent acting as the High Council of Regency, whereupon all the honors and powers pertaining thereto will devolve, according to the Constitution, of course, upon the Prime Minister, Mgr. Fan Noli who will bear and discharge them until such time as others are duly elected. This will doubtless be the first act of the new “Parliament”; the second to overthrow Mgr. Fan Noli who has failed, they complain, to execute the twenty points set forth in his programme announced in June last.
I have [etc.]