A black mark on the voter lists. The court steals the Municipality. The Republican Guard, guarding the bridges.

“Doesn’t the one who stole it have any blame at all?” In every election campaign that has taken place while he has served as President of the Republic, Sali Berisha’s image appears so complex that it is astonishing how its framing takes hold in public opinion. And this is a fact that, whether we like it or not, we are obliged to accept as a reality just as complex as the figure it represents. Perhaps this is also Berisha’s desire, to arrive at things in his own sick way. We would not be wrong if we tried to observe that, for the character in question, nothing else matters more than this framing. He seems not to care at all if someone were to notice the “emotional” miniature of a little Dimitrov, a symbol of a man who turns from accused into accuser, in the words repeated five or more times at rallies held in their respective locations; nor if someone else, measuring the limits of his movements in the areas favored by Haxhi Qamili, were to tell the Europeans, “Leave Shijak to me and take whoever you want”; nor if others wanted to confuse him with the groom in the bawdy song who wanted by force to become one “where there isn’t even a usë in the yard,” while he continues to repeat, tiresomely, his invitation to form a coalition with the PR and Balli Kombëtar. What Berisha apparently still has not managed to understand is that, besides the legacy that came from the Democratic Party, where he was active for more than two decades, and the career of chieftainism that someone instilled in him through respect for Haxhi Qamili, which Enver Hoxha displayed, Berisha has become a character less valuable than folkloric, when he attacks those who do not acknowledge the theft, portraying the thief as the victim in every case. One must marvel at the president’s proverbial boldness: on every occasion he blames the pyramid schemes loudly—not on the incompetent surgeon’s knife that opened the wound, but on every other political force except the DP, and even more so at his contrived pre-election rallies, on the people who put their money into them. When Mane’s cow was stolen, many of his fellow villagers accused him himself of all sorts of things; other fellow villagers accused him “of lack of vigilance” as well. Exhausted, among other things by “lack of vigilance,” and worn down to anger, poor Mania asked: “But all?!” And yet he received no answer. So too Berisha goes back and forth through the villages of Tirana and Durrës, killing and cutting down the “culprits” who, according to him, allowed Albania to sink to the brink of anarchy, without paying any price for the actual sinking into anarchy, without holding to account the real thieves of Albanians’ money, peace, and order, or imposing the punishment he deserves on himself.

p. 2

(Interview with Nikollë Lesi) p. 12

FOOTBALL 33rd Latin American Championship . Brazil thrashes Costa Rica. p. 15

p. 2

Doctors fly to Greece The city is shaken. Five dead.

. Pages 6 and 14