10 percent of Tirana’s population will vote twice or more The Government’s balance sheet for the local elections: 175,000 fictitious registrations, 315,000 surplus ballot papers page 3 Politics needs morality The closer voting day gets, the more pessimistic the opposition becomes about the possibility of fair and unmanipulated elections being held in Albania as well. In its own press and in the independent press, the parties wishing to compete with the Democratic Party are openly declaring that they feel powerless in the face of the unscrupulous conduct of the now-established electoral structures of the state party. The opposition clearly feels that it continues to face an adversary to whom you can say anything and he will not be offended. You can insult him and he will act as if he has not been cursed, as if nothing has happened. There are endless facts showing that the electoral lists have followed the patterns of those used in the parliamentary elections and have, as such, been manipulated, added to, and altered by removals. Nevertheless, the structures responsible for this use the standard phrases of the springtime. They speak like characters from Hašek about some kind of “boycott” and some kind of “red front”, whose connection with the manipulation of electoral lists no one can explain. This is one aspect of the pessimism. The facts about what is being done, for example, and the consequences it will bring are endless. They are such that, for Albanian intellectuals and realist politicians, any hope that the elections of 20 October will be free and democratic can only be considered a feminine joke. And for the overwhelming majority of Albanian public opinion, it is now clear that a fair electoral contest cannot yet be expected in Albania. This may be the fault of those currently in power, but it is undoubtedly also due to the opposition’s weakness. It is also due to European opportunism, but above all it is the most logical phenomenon in a particular Albanian reality, one that cannot be changed by resolutions of the European Parliament. Nevertheless, politics has a morality, and when it lacks one, it must be demanded. The Democratic Party may win this election too, may remain in power until 2000, and may stay even longer. And yet it will not be able to give Albanian politics a democratic morality. In this way, it risks going down in history as the party that failed to establish its morality in the state and ended up as a party manipulated by its own manipulation. VLADIMIR PRELA Paris, watching the solar eclipse Reuters

Since 14 April 1996, the editorial office of the newspaper “Koha Jonë” has been working without any telephone at work, because the Tirana telephone service has cut off the telephone signal for the two numbers: 28781 and 28796. Under these circumstances, “Koha Jonë” is asking Titan Shehu for a telephone line, the man who currently has more telephone numbers than anyone else. Titan Shehu has a telephone number at the Prime Minister’s Office as Prime Minister, one at the DP as Party Chairman, one at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as minister, one at home as a citizen of Tirana, one at the hospital as an amnesic doctor, and at least one in his pocket, which is his mobile phone. We are not asking Titan for any of his office numbers, but only for the hospital number, because we know that even if he were informed on that number about an epidemic of polio or cholera, he would respond by hanging up the phone. While making this request, we will also make Titan aware of the danger of cholera and polio. We await a reply at numbers 28781 and 28796.

page 9 “Vodka for a hospital in exchange for a car” page 2 Whom is Ahrens replacing with Rufi? page 5 Laco plays poker at the “Ylli” bingo hall page 17 Enver Hoxha with hands like Uriah Heep page 18