Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj has revoked the order that temporarily delegated the powers of the city’s mayor to Deputy Mayor Anuela Ristani, according to a new order signed by Veliaj.

The order formally annuls the previous decision delegating the mayor’s duties, meaning Ristani will no longer exercise the powers that had been temporarily assigned to her as acting head of the Tirana Municipality.

In its reasoning, the new order states that the legally recognized mandate of Tirana’s elected mayor has continued and has been acknowledged in two decisions by Albania’s Constitutional Court.

According to the document, the latest Constitutional Court ruling constitutes a new and decisive circumstance for the institutional relationship within the Municipality of Tirana. It says that the exercise of any delegated powers must be carried out in full accordance with the authority of the elected mayor.

The order further states that, following the Constitutional Court’s latest decision, there had been a progressive breakdown in the exercise of the delegated powers. This was allegedly reflected in a lack of institutional information and coordination, failure to implement court decisions, as well as the non-implementation and refusal to comply with direct orders issued by the mayor.

The revocation restores the exercise of the previously delegated mayoral powers to the elected mayor, according to the order.