Italy heads to the polls today Today around 45 million Italians have been invited to go to the polls in the hope of electing them through a proportional system. This electoral system came into force following the reforms of August. 232 will be elected by direct vote, while the other 83 senators will be elected under the proportional mechanism on a regional basis. For the Chamber of Deputies, 475 seats belong to the majoritarian system and a further 155 to the proportional system based on lists, whose political forces must have passed the minimum threshold of 4% in Sunday’s elections. The organization of the voting procedures on Sunday has engaged more than 500,000 people at 91,457 polling stations, where voting will take place from 7:00 in the morning until 22:00 the same day. These elections are the culmination of a bitter political campaign between the two largest Italian political groupings, the Pole of Freedoms, a center-right coalition led by Silvio Berluskoni Today around 45 million Italians are expected to head to the polling stations in the hope of giving their country a stable government. These elections will choose 630 deputies and 315 senators, using a mixed majoritarian and proportional electoral of August 1993. Three quarters of the parliamentarians will be elected under the majoritarian system, in a single round. The remaining 25% will be elected on the basis of proportional lists. Thus, in the Senate, there is a fierce political campaign between Italy’s two largest political groupings: the Pole of Freedoms, a centre-right coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi, and the Olive Tree, a left-wing coalition led by Romano Prodi. On the majoritarian side of these elections, the far left has also joined the Olive Tree. Continued on p. 5 Caricature taken from “Secolo d’Italia”

For the prosecutor from Vlora, the law is above all A rare case, with which Albanian society is not yet familiar, occurred some time ago in Vlora. For the first time, two institutions that coexist in their operations suddenly found themselves facing one another and entered into conflict. A journalist from “KJ” became the subject of this conflict. It all began a few months ago, when journalist Zenep(e) Luka was sued at the Vlora Prosecutor’s Office by SHIK over an article published in the newspaper “KJ” about the secret service’s interference in the affairs of a political party. But the Vlora Prosecutor’s Office did not accept SHIK’s complaint and closed the criminal case, since the complaint lacked the essential elements of a criminal offense. SHIK had accused the journalist of defamation against it, despite— Continued on p. 3

Rare An old and very well-known proverb says that appetite comes with eating, and this has been proven in practice; but the Italian sales agent is quite right to say that while eating, a pearl may appear... Liana Parodi, the woman in question, became the protagonist of a rather interesting incident in one of the restaurants in the city of Genoa, on the Ligurian coast, while thoroughly enjoying a plate of pasta. Thus, this “pearl fisher” did not have to dive into the depths of the oceans in search of pearls at all; a plate of pasta was enough, and... the pearl nearly split her palate. At first she took it for one of those little stones that escape the cooks’ strict inspection, or for a stubborn grain of salt, but a careful examination revealed that it was a pearl weighing 1 carat and worth 4 million Italian lire. And they say that you can only earn by working!

None of them is a member of PR This is the announcement now confirmed at the central offices of the Republican Party following the response from the Commission for the Review and Verification of Backgrounds. Despite the understandable fact that such a thing cannot help but leave a bitter feeling of disappointed hopes, the Party headquarters nevertheless appears calm. This is also confirmed by the press spokesperson of PRSH, Neritan Alibali, who told the newspaper “Republika” yesterday that, apart from the fact that none of those “heard” is a member of the Republican Party, but rather independent intellectuals who had agreed to stand as candidates for the PR, some of them were unable to pass the Commission’s screening because of the positions they had held during the dictatorship, including that of assistant judge, as well as giving testimony in the political trials of that time. “Although including this category in the relevant Law was also one of our Party’s aims concerning that law,” Alibali continued, “the Party Presidium has reprimanded the branches that put forward the above-mentioned candidacies for failing to know the law.” According to the Party spokesperson, although the Republicans did not agree with such an inclusion, its final incorporation into Article 2 of the “Law on the Verification of the Backgrounds of Officials, etc.” obliged the branches in question to apply this article as an inseparable part of the law. He also stressed that the Republicans have no reservations about the Commission, which, in any case, acted in accordance with the law in this instance as well. Nevertheless, replacing them is not an acute problem for the electoral commissions at all levels of PRSH, not least because the Party has put forward 140 candidates, thereby making it possible to have backup candidates for the relevant constituencies. “In any case,” Alibali concludes, “work is proceeding normally toward the equally normal completion of the first phase of the campaign, which for us ends with the official registration of candidates by April 26, the legal deadline.”

Today around 45 million Italians are expected to head to the polling stations in the hope of giving their country a stable government. Caricature taken from “Secolo d’Italia”

All branches of the Republican Party must notify or send to the Central Headquarters, by Monday at 13:00, the names of the members of the constituency commissions. Tel: 32511; 23090; 23428; 28361.

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Newspaper “REPUBLIKA,” “Sami Frashëri” Street, near “Petro Nini Luarasi” High School, Tirana, Account No. BTK 986/110 Tel/Fax 259 88