The successful conclusion of the discussion on the minimum threshold for entering Parliament, although clouded by its own hypocrisies, seems to be being completely devalued by the developments anticipated by the electoral law. It is not that the positive importance of fixing it is denied, just as neither is the setting of the ceiling on the number of MPs, but what once again throws us back into a skeptical position about the party and presidential sincerity of the former opponents of the threshold is the whole series of statements published in succession from Brojka to T. Shehu, about the way in which the proportional relations should be corrected. Not only expressed in principle, but also with concrete numerical details, where the 4% threshold will be divided among 15 parliamentary seats, the logical chain of the assumptions made one believe that the stage of discussions and tactical planning within the PD has now been closed. And not only that, but even a purely arithmetic calculation of the number of seats gained by those parties that will benefit from the correction of the percentages leads to the conclusion that these tactics and plans are once again part of the PD’s totalitarian strategy. It is hard to say that its politicians are so naive as to believe even their own poll results, published by them, which after all will contain their desire for the complete elimination of small parties in a Parliament that is easily controlled and commanded by the voting mechanism. If time shows that these kinds of statements are not merely a practical approach already applied on other occasions, but rather a way of measuring the pulse of other political forces, this means that the final goal aims to determine much earlier the pre-election period than the character and composition of the future Parliament. If we were to believe that the PD leaders have also understood that the tendency to popularize their party has disfigured its politics from the physiognomy of the Right, pushing it ever more toward left-wing practices, then we would also understand the efforts of the leaders in question to regain the electoral forces that accompanied this process of political exploitation. Naturally, it is too late to regain this disappointed electorate, all the more so because not only have left-wing practices taken the PD so far that no one can believe in its honesty, but also because the completed Albanian political landscape has meanwhile revealed the true Right, making it possible for the right-wing electorate to find its party outside the PD. Exact numerical figures See further on p. 2

Yesterday the Kosovo information office in Washington was opened and will begin operating at the start of next year. Meanwhile, the president of the Republic of Kosovo, Dr. Ibrahim Rugova, is on a visit to the United States of America, where he held meetings with Secretary of State Woren Kristofer, the national security adviser to the Clinton administration, Anthony Lake, and other officials of the Clinton administration. Rugova told the press that he was very pleased with the visit and that he had received promises that Kosovo would be on the “Top List” after Dayton. In his meetings with American officials, Rugova requested direct U.S. mediation on the Kosovo issue.

Protest by the PR spokesperson 2

Neither Christmas nor Papandreou’s illness changed the Greek constant Greece remains consistent in its stance. Greek prisons are filling up with captured emigrants, who are loaded onto buses and repatriated to Albania. The figures have been fixed for a week now. Every day 1,000–1,100. Every day 350–500 at Kakavija and 400–800 at Kapshtica. Every day the same number are gathered in Piraeus, Athens and Thessaloniki. “SKUPA 95” is also carried out on the eve of Christmas, when the Greeks were more liberal during these five years. In December '95 they are more consistent than in other years. Even now it is not expected that many bodies from the Athens morgues will receive confirmation from the Albanian Embassy as to whether they are Albanian or Eastern European, Asian or African emigrants. They are loaded into cars and brought to Albania, as happened in recent days when two corpses, one of an Asian and one of a black man, arrived as far as Kakavija on the pretext that they were Albanian, and only the insistence of the Albanian authorities made clarification possible. However, in recent times another fact has also been learned. Many letters have been sent by Albanian emigrants to the Prime Minister of Greece, Papandreou, wishing him a speedy recovery and asking him that with his recovery the attitude of the Greek authorities toward the return of emigrants may also change. But these letters have changed nothing in the Greek stance. B.F.

Another tearful concern, tormented by the anguish of waiting, which is worse even than the tragic news itself, came knocking at the offices of our editorial staff. After the letter from citizen Asllan Etemi, it is now the family members of Remzi Petrani, 30, and Veli Balla, 27, both from the city of Vlora, who want to know something possible about the fate of their children. Our editorial staff contacted the personnel of the Italian embassy in Tirana, where we were told that so far there is no confirmation other than what has been made known by the various Albanian and Italian official sources. Likewise, the information so far from the specialists with whom we spoke told us that the winds and the night sea on 25 November, when the missing persons set out from the Albanian coast, rule out any possibility that the transport boat drifted south. If, in the worst case, it did not reach the southern shores of Italy because of the difficult conditions, its fate must be sought north of the Strait of Otranto, not only on the northeastern shores of Italy, but the possibility of the coast of Malta cannot be ruled out either. On the other hand, neither the consular group nor the other competent Albanian bodies give any signal except silence. Republika

NATIONAL LIBRARY Tirana [?]

I’m ready to go and set up a position in Bosnia, on condition that they don’t open my file. There will be huge stir and excitement when the spies come out of the newspapers like mushrooms after the rain. The United National Party of the Security Services, which will be formed as soon as the law on the protection of the image of high-ranking officials comes into force, will take part in the elections and, according to polls, will win them. The News of the Day finally came out daily.