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“Ali Baba’s thieves have moved into the archives; they have entered the prime minister’s office.” Berisha declared this a short while ago, while yesterday the Albanian Prime Minister, repeating the familiar refrain about the fight against corruption, issued a categorical order whose meaning was essentially: “catch the thief, who has fled in an unknown direction.” Meanwhile, the country’s senior leaders have been talking for some time about increasing the effectiveness of the fight against corruption, a few days before, or after, their names become known to the public in connection with organizing smuggl... [?] operations, or involvement in prohibited trafficking. Likewise, the notorious organizers of criminal deeds, an hour after washing their hands with champagne, often appear on television and theor... [?] about the “harsh” measures that should be taken against the guilty. As the tragic situation drags on toward infinity, it has finally begun to take on a grotesque character, to the point that it now seems the word “corrupt” itself no longer carries any degree of blame. This is so true that people themselves sometimes address one another by saying, “why, where are you corrupt?” Indeed, the word has become so affectionate that it seems people who do not subscribe to such expressions have begun to feel insulted. Meanwhile, the corruption stories and scandals, publicized long ago, seem to have been filed away in the archives, from where they are expected to disappear soon. Left behind are unfinished court hearings and accusations concerning railway wagons, road tenders, the privatization of enterprises, the sale and purchase of aid, trafficking in fuel, clandestine migrants, weapons, cigarettes, and even corruption among medical staff and organs. The names of various members of government cabinets have been mentioned several times in these affairs. The fight against corruption has by now taken on such abstract proportions that one gets the impression this battle strategy was borrowed from Don Quixote, from the age of windmills. Thus, the fight is waged everywhere—in government meetings, press conferences, international seminars, etc.—and an anti-corruption structure has even been established, which is functioning “in any case” to find the guilty. Perhaps for this reason, and also to move the trading centers to the outskirts, the government has taken the measure of transferring the “Gabi” company near Allias. Even horses have been banned from walking along the boulevards and in front of institutions. Meanwhile, inside them, the Trojan Horses—real corruption and smuggling—continue to gnaw away at the prospects of Albanians, under the repeated cries of successive prime ministers: “catch the thief.”

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Today at 11:00, at the Central Headquarters, the Presidency of the Republican Party is holding a press conference.