The Ministry of Public Order robbed by force Page 8 Earthquake in Turkey, 3 dead, 4,000 houses destroyed Earthquake in Turkey, 3 dead, 4,000 houses destroyed

Meidani gets lost again By Denion NDRENIKA The head of state has begun to contradict himself. Or, rather, let us say he has begun looking for another way to write his own rules. After decreeing a Central Election Commission by force of authority, without ever relying on the opposition, Meidani began what he called consultations with the political parties, pretending to have forgotten that he was doing what he should have done long ago. Not being as strong as he tried to appear, the president has once again returned to methods of imposition, but by another route. He is calling the parties only to ask them to submit a candidate for the sole vacant seat on the CEC. With this, the theoretical head of state does nothing except postpone the resolution of the problem. But worse still, the Republic President’s declared position, besides being hypocritical, is based on a policy of dividing the political forces, sowing discord among them and undermining their right to decide for themselves, without needing to receive orders from anyone about the course they will follow—even if that person is the President of the Republic. The latter cannot find understanding with the opposition; indeed, he continues not to have it, and yet continues to entrench himself in the position of the main cause of the failure of the electoral process. Under pressure from Albanian politics and the International Community, the president took a step, false though it was, without managing to escape the false nature of his politics. Because he still does not have the understanding of the political forces. And how could he, when he conveyed no message to them by decreeing the CEC? He ignored a large part of the Albanian people, who did not vote for his party. He ignored an entire electoral process, whose guarantee is not some honorary element of his work, but a constitutional legal obligation. A president who tried to act tough has now turned back. Unfortunately, not in the right direction. The president has once again chosen the wrong road, a dead end.

Mediu: Antilaw rules at the Presidency Meidani has gone one step further in his dirty tricks concerning the electoral process and suffered yet another defeat. After the failure of the meeting he himself called with the leaderships of the parliamentary groups for the same purpose, yesterday the head of state attempted to stage his latest diversion, trying to arrange another round-table meeting, conceived and held at the Presidency’s headquarters. Page 2

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Testimony: The last inspection was carried out in 1997 The prosecution is questioning all the members of the Inventory Commission as witnesses and, at the same time, as people with knowledge of what happened in the Treasury tunnels at Kërrabë. In the testimony signed by Rezart Veseli, it states that “until February 1997, the situation was normal and there had been no damage in the tunnels.” According to Veseli, the last inspection, carried out by the four-member commission, was in February 1997, since no further inspection was conducted afterward. According to Veseli’s testimony, this happened because no order was subsequently issued to the commission members to inventory what had happened in the Kërrabë tunnels during the unrest of 1997. Page 5