Italian ambassador summoned to Rome
“The relations between our embassy and Berisha’s government are unacceptable”
A group of Communist Refoundation MPs ask Dini for Foresti’s “head”
The slogans return
Albanian President Berisha has begun his full electoral tour, undoubtedly similar to the campaigns of 6 November or 26 May. The same harsh style toward opponents, the same intonation and the same slogans. The fixed idea is strongly present: a landslide victory for the DP. Berisha has once again climbed onto the podium bearing the inscription “President of the Republic,” in order to contribute to the alibi for the percentages he will obtain in the elections. This despite the fact that on 26 May he managed to secure 90 percent of the seats in parliament for his party.
This time, too, the President of the Republic has put on the party worker’s jacket, leaving the jacket of head of state on the coat rack in his presidential office. And in this jacket, the promises, more than exaggerated, seem to come from a magical world. The North is promised relocation to the lowlands, the South the fertile land of its neighbors, while the people of central Albania are promised the Metropolis for the first time.
Yesterday in Fushë-Krujë, Mr. Sali Berisha announced that this province, in the foothills of Mount Kastrat, would become a neighborhood of Tirana. The fantastic idea was applauded for a long time by the bewildered residents, who wake each morning to the dust raised by cars on their 600-meter-long road. As they warmed their hands with applause, perhaps they remembered the old slogans: “Let’s make the village like the city,” “Let’s tackle the mountains and make them like the plains,” and so on. Thus, the apartment blocks on this cobbled road will have a different status: they will be the paradise of the Metropolitan neighborhood promised by Berisha.
President Berisha is very likely to use such promises to silence every political argument, not only those of his opponents but also those of the political science imposed during election campaigns. For, in record time, he can bring towns and villages closer together, and unite demographic and geographic spaces. He can make Albania cease to be a state with local administrative divisions and become one large city, whose neighborhoods might include Saranda or distant Tropoja. After that, everything will be different, since the first step will be to stop holding local elections—the idea of turning Albania into a metropolis arose from them.
ARBAN HASANI
Tirana, Italian ambassador Foresti dances with a woman. Photo AFSH