Will you find a job? An employment agency opens On page 9

Confidence vote for Majko: 105 deputies in favor, none from the opposition On page 3

Karamirjo: The Majko program alone will not eliminate corruption On page 2

SMUGGLING / Clash between institutions just hours after the new Government was approved Coffee, the first scandal of “Majko” Four trucks seized in Pogradec. 480 thousand dollars at stake Head of Customs intervenes: Release them. Ministry of Public Order objects TIRANA - Smuggling uncovered in the new Government. Police, acting by chance, seized four trucks carrying coffee without customs documentation. This has brought the old dispute between Public Order and Finance back into the open. Officials at the Ministry of Public Order were asked, just minutes after the cargo was seized, to release it. According to them, the Director of Customs, Fotaq Çaliçe, made this intervention concerning the coffee, which is worth nearly half a million dollars. After a special Ministry team checked the trucks’ documents at the scene, the cargo was escorted to Tirana yesterday by a large contingent of uniformed police. In the evening, procedures began to confiscate the 120 tons of coffee. A traffic patrol had stopped the trucks near Lake Pogradec, suspecting irregularities in the documentation. It is reported that they had entered from Greece via Kapshticë and were headed for the capital, from where the coffee would then be distributed throughout the country. On page 4

Serbs enter the border Terror in Kukës The UÇK now has fewer attacks and more politics On pages 4, 8 Serbs enter the border. Terror in Kukës. The UÇK now has fewer attacks and more politics.

OPINION What is the Constitution and why should it be voted on? Arben Imami A little more than a year ago, at the beginning of September, Parliament, possessing the necessary political and moral legitimacy before the Albanian electorate, established the Commission for Drafting the Constitution, which is now at the culmination of its work. The completion of this work would crown an undertaking that I would not hesitate to call serious and committed. Even the most perfect Constitution imaginable cannot solve the country’s many complex problems, but it can create the right conditions for governance, avert unnecessary crises, fill the gaps in our legislation that have caused extraordinary difficulties in the political management of these crises, and further consolidate institutions. The processes to date, especially the events of last year, clearly showed that the constitutional solutions already adopted are not enough for Albania; a different, more realistic approach was essential, one that could ensure stable state, political, and social institutions serving the citizens. With complaints about governance. In the institutional context, a new experience drawn from previous experiences and the country’s entire protracted history, amid general scarcity, the recent absence of regular constitutional politics, states of emergency, and upheavals in the financial and control systems—in all of this, we must avoid the inevitable consequence of a constitutional vacuum and unsuitable constitutional solutions. Filling this vacuum, moving institutions toward democratic constitutional coordinates, correcting the system of governance at central and local levels, and reorienting toward international standards in the field of human rights and freedoms are the new vectors of the process of drafting the Constitution of the Republic of Albania. The draft presented is not a copy of the political program of any particular party or coalition, but a general need of the nation to regulate itself within the model of the European community into which we wish to integrate fully. In the public’s mindset, the time when the Constitution was shaped to the political advantage of a particular party has now passed. This may be a guarantee that the Constitution can now be understood as a popular act taking precedence over the particular political aims of the moment, an act through which the people give themselves the form of government they desire and subject state, political, and civil institutions to their direct will. I must repeat that, from the outset, the Commission’s work has been guided by the philosophy of drafting a Constitution that would not belong to individuals or particular political groupings in opposition to others; on the contrary, we have sought a Constitution that is independent and not an instrument of politics. We have committed ourselves to ensuring that such a process will successfully correspond to humanity and, in particular, to Albanian realities, so that citizens may conceive of it as a Constitution belonging to everyone, a Constitution for everyone. In the Constitution, given that political organizations still dominate our society, a referendum is the only way to give the draft the legitimacy it needs. The signatures of representatives of the PD and other parties are missing from the draft. Efforts to involve them in drafting it have failed because politics

Majko: We will not intervene in the FSHF On page 11

Tirana GAZETTE Yzberisht gang faces 173 years On page 5 University GAZETTE Bells in silence, fires at the central [area?] On page 7 Shkodër GAZETTE Kosovar children are not being vaccinated On page 6