Late last night, former Prime Minister Fino gave way to his party leader Parliament examines itself. The first debates among deputies. Questions over Laco and Bushati Mejdani meets Fino moments after taking the oath as President (Photo: REUTERS) TIRANA - Albania now has a new President. His name is Rexhep Mejdani. The Albanian Parliament elected him yesterday by a unanimous vote at 18:44. A total of 122 deputies voted for Mejdani as president. Of these, only three voted against, 2 abstained, and 7 ballots were invalid. Amid flashes and applause from those present, the man who will lead Albania appeared emotional, his gaze distant. “I will be everyone’s President,” he declared in his first speech as President. “To be as loyal as possible to my citizens and to be a symbol of unity, I will seek to leave the party and all my functions within it,” Mejdani declared, thereby immediately taking on the image of a President for all Albanians. “We lost part of our party’s potential, but we gained a President for everyone,” Nano said. Agolli hands the “keys” to Parliament to Gjinushi and Dokle. “You big brats, come to the old man”

Andrea Stefani Albania once again has a crippled Parliament. Recent developments have not brought it to life; it remains caught in the vicious cycle of political revenge. The great chasm is now clearer than ever. From its depths rise without pause the hot vapors of crises and future devastating collapses. National Reconciliation has remained an empty phrase, a mere play on words, a façade of progress in politics, accepted at a moment of weakness and fear. Relations between government and opposition seem to have hardened into an eternal enmity that extinguishes every hope. The Albanian Parliament convened for its first session without the presence of the largest opposition party. This happened seven years ago. It happened again after May 26. As soon as they lose elections, Albanian politicians declare that they were won by “the enemy of the people” and are the first to undertake other parliamentary solutions. But do they have the right to abandon the mission entrusted to them by the people’s vote, to abandon the temple where democracy begins? After the PD abandoned Parliament in 1991, it was not without blame in its service. According to worldwide experience, the pathology of state collapse presents three diagnoses. Collapse occurs when: a) The State has lost legitimacy in the eyes of most of the population and can no longer exercise its authority; b) The State has been governed by corrupt, negligent, incompetent leaders and officials, or by some combination of the three; c) The State has fragmented into civil conflict and no party is able to restore central authority. Albanian politicians cannot explain this classification, which is based on the experience of Rwanda or Somalia. Because a democratic state means government and opposition. But above all, they must learn from this bitter experience. It is a matter of saving a people, of preventing them from sliding into tragedy. Coexistence obliges politicians, as moral agents, to pull the people back from the precipice into which their adventurism and state-level irresponsibility have sent them tumbling. This parliament was elected at gunpoint. That is true. But the opposition must not forget that the Kalashnikovs were left lying in the middle of the road by a government that was its own, by one of its ministers. It must not be forgotten that the guns were seized after the pyramid schemes collapsed, while all those in power and in the opposition tolerated them because of their political interests. It must not be forgotten that these elections were conducted according to an exemplary political formula. Therefore, it is absurd to threaten people personally, or to reject the elections and the parliamentarians who emerged from them. Yesterday’s responsibility for the catastrophe of the state does not allow today’s opposition, as moral guardians, to exploit the people’s vulnerability as an opportunity for exploitation. Its responsibility for another catastrophe—the responsibility of yesterday’s opposition throughout this tragedy—must make the new officeholders understand that victory is not the result of their own merits, but of disappointment with their rivals’ inability to govern. They do not have a victory at all; they have been given a challenge to overcome. Everyone should feel responsible. The “power” of declaring oneself the opposition. The minister repeats a slogan and a warning. In Albania, everyone feels defeated. Because there is no winner when chaos reigns. Except for that—and things will continue this way as long as politics focuses on sacrificing the “State” to serve its own interests. As long as property, family, citizens, and life remain unprotected from crime and abandoned by the State; as long as the opposition remains silent about failures of governance or turns its face toward the fire of disasters and Albanian terror, while people are left to pick up the pieces. When they lose elections, Albanian politicians declare that they have been won by the “enemy of the people,” and the first step they take is to ignore the parliamentarians. But can they abandon the mission entrusted to them by the people’s votes, abandon the temple where democracy begins? After the Democratic Party abandoned Parliament in 1991, it was the Socialist Party that risked taking the same course after the May 26 elections. In both cases, major social upheavals, government crises and intervention by the international community were needed to compel the opposition to return. Now the same thing is happening again. After harshly criticizing the socialists’ “boycott,” the Democratic Party, no longer in power, has refused to take part in Parliament’s proceedings “for an indefinite period.” And it seems to us that we are once again seeing the same thing—the same anti-parliamentary tactic that the Democratic Party criticized until yesterday. In the fractured reality of Albanian politics, it is extremely difficult to find fair agreements. Therefore, it would be fruitless to determine whether or not the Socialist Party was right to boycott all these proceedings; that right is now being claimed by the Democratic Party. There is a major, more urgent issue that should keep politicians from answering their opponents “in kind.” It is the collapse of the state, the emergence of a fragmented and divided state apparatus. And the state, the structure of a democratic society, begins with Parliament. Therefore, the vote received in an election is not a privilege to be used only to carry out an order, a move that supposedly serves the legitimate rights of those who elected them: our elected representatives, our elected representatives ... No political force has the right to distort the truth by claiming that the established state order is merely an attempted coup. Because nobody is

The city is still holding its breath VLORA - The contingents of soldiers from the Multinational Protection Mission are beginning to leave, one after another. All the Greeks who were in the main center of the Albanian protests have set off for home. They arrived as part of Operation “Alba” and were stationed in the only building set up for the deployment of the Multinational Peace Force in Albania. Together with the Italians, the soldiers tried to keep the situation under control in the city of Vlora, whose residents were in revolt. Later, as the revolt degenerated into anarchy and chaos, the city in distress became a scene of clashes between rival local gangs. On page 2

Record in Fier: eight people arrive at the hospital; Gunfire wounds dozens Record in Fier: eight people arrive at the hospital Berisha leaves, celebration in the South Gunfire wounds dozens TIRANA — A rain of bullets in the southern sky. The toll was 13 wounded by stray and ricocheting bullets. Gunshots celebrated the resignation of former president Berisha in all the cities where protests first began after the collapse of the pyramid schemes. Residents of Tepelenë, Vlorë, Fier, Berat, Memaliaj, Sarandë and Lushnjë, at 16:02 on Wednesday, as television read the statement announcing Berisha’s irrevocable departure, brought out their entire arsenals to unleash the din and put an end to their anxiety. Now it seems that the end of the anxiety caused by the gangs, which have been the masters of parts of these areas for weeks, is next. The resignation celebration lasted almost an hour throughout the South. Celebration in the South after the June 29 elections

Thousands of applicants for “diplomatic” and “service” passports; crowds gather outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Thousands of applicants for “diplomatic” and “service” passports The “passport craze” takes off Crowds gather outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs TIRANA — A long line outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to sources at the Ministry, various people, mainly former members of the Guard, have turned up at the Ministry’s counters to obtain service passports. A long line of people seeking a service that would normally make such a queue seem expected on the first day. But the queue has stretched so long that it has begun to attract the attention of residents around the Ministry. According to the same sources, the “craze” for obtaining service passports, and even diplomatic ones, has spread widely in recent times. It has not yet been fully confirmed, but it is likely that by the end of the decade 4,500 service passports and 2,000 diplomatic passports had been issued. The figures have made a “satisfying leap” in recent months, indeed in recent days. Not bad for a small country like ours. Nearly 6,500 Albanians can now travel as equals even when crossing the borders of some Western countries. Under the law adopted back in March 1993, the country’s two top officials—the President and the Prime Minister—have the right to issue such passports. The law provides for a long list of important people who may benefit from the considerable convenience offered by this type of passport, and who must apply to the relevant authority. If the figure cited above is true, then we must consider something else: Albania apparently has more important people than it actually needs. Or—and this is worse—it seems to be issuing far too many such passports. p.re. Ministry of Foreign Affairs

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SPORTS GAZETTE ALBANIAN GAZETTE Sports SOS, national teams! Where are the players?... National teams: Where are the players? On pages 5–8

SHOW BUSINESS Parietti On page 4