Today, 16 June 1996, Austria’s Chancellor, Franc Vranicki, completes a full ten years in office. He has led Austria with a steady hand through an entire decade of political change and is currently the longest-serving head of government after Germany’s Chancellor, Helmut Kohl. Franc Vranicki, 58, once a well-known basketball player and later a successful banker and politician, is now regarded by Austrians as a symbol of the country’s stability. A worthy representative of Austrian social democracy, franc Vranicki took the oath as the country’s chancellor on 16 June 1986, ten years ago, after serving for a time as finance minister. He replaced Fred Zinovacin at a time when the Austrian Social Democrats were undergoing a profound process of reform, and following the highly controversial presidency of Kurt Vald’haim, former Secretary-General of the United Nations. The latter, the ceremonial head of the Austrian state and leader of the centre-right People’s Party, suffered the international community’s harsh stance toward him, as well as the United States’ refusal to grant him an entry visa because of the activities Vald’haim had carried out in Adolf Hitler’s Nazi army. From the very beginning of his tenure as chancellor, Vranicki was seen by public opinion as the man who would restore his country’s damaged image. In 1991, Franc Vranicki made an extraordinary impression on world opinion when, in a speech of this kind, he stated Continued on p. 2

Another no to PQ Last night, the Constitutional Court unanimously dismissed the lawsuit brought by the Pole party against the CEC, seeking to have the 16 June elections taking place today declared illegal. The lawsuit, filed 48 hours ago, is the only one before the Constitutional Court that has not only been heard in record time but also concluded in record time. Just 10 hours after it was filed, the parties were notified to take part in the court proceedings. At the hearing, which began yesterday at 10:00, Arben Imami and Gaqo Apostoli appeared for the plaintiffs, and the CEC for the defendant. The Pole party members claimed that the CEC had violated the law, together with the President, by decreeing on 7 June that elections be held again in 17 electoral districts, since, under electoral law, they had lost that right as of 2 June 1996. They sought suspension and a declaration that this CEC decision was illegal, and that no elections be held on 16 June. But the lawsuit was strongly opposed by the Election Commission. Parliamentary candidates receive their “mandate” from the district commissions, while the CEC merely announced the results it had received from those commissions. It had no legal basis, since the Commission had time to review the shortcomings and, as soon as it took them up for consideration, made proposals for their decreeing within 10 days of their submission. In its ruling, the Constitutional Court concluded that, in the decisions it had made, the CEC had violated no law and had acted in full compliance with the law and within its powers. The Centre Pole “broke away” from its socialist allies and, to create the impression that they favoured dialogue rather than violence, called for the elections in 17 districts to serve as a test for repeating the elections nationwide. But the DP reacted harshly, having declared both parties nonexistent. All these discussions were removed from the day’s agenda by yesterday’s ruling, made public by Constitutional Court President Rustem Gjata, who explained that both the designation of the 17 districts and the signing of the decision to repeat their elections on 7 June, as well as their decree by the President of the Republic, were in accordance with the law. B. M.

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Over the course of two days, the “Centre Pole” changed its position three times regarding today’s elections. Unlike the SP, which seems to have decided to remain faithful to the idea of boycotting the entire electoral process continuing after what happened on 26 May, the PQ leaders gave signs over these days that they were moving away from their “barricade”. Just a few days ago, the PQ leaders said Continued on p. 2

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