This is a PS tactic directed from the center The awarding of the title “Honorary Citizen” by municipalities dominated by the socialists appears to be one of their tactics for consolidating their electorate, which, for reasons now well known, is at risk of fracturing. While the awarding of this title by the Municipality of Tepelenë to the socialist leader imprisoned for theft seemed more like a challenge to President Berisha, who had spoken out against Nano two days earlier, the analogous action by the Municipality of Kuçovë, also dominated by the socialists, should be viewed differently. The decision by the Municipality of Kuçovë, imitating Tepelenë, was taken immediately after the court of that district decided to annul the decision to award Mr. Nano the honorary title. In addition, accounts are circulating that other socialist municipalities are also preparing to follow the example of Tepelenë and Kuçovë. Indeed, local PS leaders say that the leaders of the PS presidium, including deputy chairman Pellumbi, under the guise of activities of an electoral nature, are encouraging the local PS leaderships, and through them the socialist municipalities, to

The socialists overburden the commission A deluge of rejections for the Socialist Party’s candidacies from the Commission for the Verification of Figures. After the first group submitted by PAD, there was enormous interest in the response that would reach the PS presidium, which had sent the commission the longest list of names of its contenders for candidacy as members of parliament. PS leaders had made it known some time ago that the socialists would submit a long list, since they had selected three candidates for each constituency. This was done largely as a result of a selection process within the party ranks, so as not to waste time on rejections that might come from the Commission for the Verification of Figures. It was known that a good part of today’s socialist leadership, having held important posts even before March 31, 1991, had their path to the next parliament blocked under the “anti-genocide” law passed a few months earlier. This was also the reason why the party’s secretary-general, interior minister after the bloody events of February 1991, Gramoz Ruçi, did not even bother to put his name on the long list of 307 people submitted to the commission. Yesterday afternoon, after the response from the Commission for the Verification of Political Figures arrived, it became known that prominent figures in the main party of the left-wing opposition had been blacklisted by the “Mezin” Commission. Thus, Dokle, Pellumbi, Ulqini, Legisi, Brokaj, Islami, followed by a long list of nearly 30 other names, are not entitled to represent the electorate in the parliament that will emerge from the May 26 elections. For now, it is not known whether the rejected socialists will follow the example of those from PAD by appealing to the Court of Cassation Cartoon: a person holds a folder marked “DOSSIER”; “COMMISSION” is written on the table.

Two Mimozas, bank employees who carried out the irregular transactions, are arrested It is suspected that another 2 billion may have met the same fate. It is suspected that another 2 billion may have met the same fate The trial of the well-known company “Arkond”, held in Tirana at the beginning of this week, caused an earthquake among the many people who regularly deposit large sums with various companies offering relatively high interest rates compared with state banking institutions or those connected with the state. But fraud in the financial sphere has also penetrated state banking institutions. The case of the company “Epidamn” is well known: using documents forged by bank employees, it had evaded customs duties amounting to a very large sum. The day before yesterday, a source from the State Audit announced a new scandal, more or less similar to that of the company “Epidamn”, which was uncovered during an inspection at the Savings Bank, where 1 billion dollars was reported missing. This was confirmed yesterday, when a complaint against Mimoza N. and Mimoza V. reached the Tirana Prosecutor’s Office. They carried out the banking transactions that resulted in the bank’s capital of 1 billion lekë disappearing, while another two billion lekë are expected to be missing as well. The mechanism that made the “flight” of the aforementioned sum possible is based on a rule under which certain companies with a high level of credibility are entitled to withdraw from banks so-called “uncovered loans”, which are issued immediately. It seems that the company “Universal”, a protagonist in the scandal in question, enjoyed such a status. However, the maximum amount for “uncovered loans” is around 150 million lekë, a figure clearly lower than the 1 billion that the Mimozas transferred into the company’s account

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