Gjallica distributes the interest. Deposits in January. Kamberi is not lending money VEFA and Kamberi agree to lower interest rates at the beginning of ’97 page 2 Mejdani and Meta — page 3

...the President said yesterday Yesterday, a formal announcement was distributed to newspaper editorial offices, which joyfully announced that, to quote it word for word, “The President of the Republic, Sali Berisha, has forgiven the financial obligations of the political parties participating in the elections...”. It is not merely the irony of the end of the year, but the irony of the political fate of Albanians. The head of state, after announcing the drastic fall in the state budget and after not daring to convene Parliament to approve the 1997 budget, is forgiving political parties money three days before the year ends. Viewed in the broader context of the news, this reads as though the political parties, with the debts they owed, had impoverished the state; and this odyssey, too, is over... Yet instead of the Albanian state—guilty and implicated in manipulating votes and shedding the blood of the opposition during the year now ending—daring to forget this with a “joke” by giving the opposition a doll of happiness. The events in Belgrade, where it is being shown that the Balkans has citizens who demand the right to a free vote before their daily bread, are being used by the President as a slap of shame in the face of the Albanian opposition. By forgiving the money, he is telling them: “Take a fistful of cash, because you too are pickpockets, just like my minister friends. Leave political fates aside.” Will the opposition accept this humiliation? Instead of elaborating and applying political principles, the country’s President has distributed, in a flash, demagogic balloons, or even fuel for the political division of the opposition and independent front. Today our country is in the most strained situation, with one arm, with another, with one leg...and never complete, with one leg...and never complete. The absence of institutions continues to remain the typical manifestation of the state and, meanwhile, the President’s main political aim. With a special “talent,” the current government has built up the mindset that “the state is money,” “we are better off because we eat more,” “we have freedom because nobody checks you over the blessing of money,” “dirty money is for the good of the people,” etc. The entire sphere of the state revolves around money, so as not to remember institutions. By forgiving money to opposition parties, Berisha is trying to appear “good and democratic.” Forgiving the money is yet another irony at the citizens’ expense. They are losing their homes, their livelihood and their hope in the usury companies linked to Berisha, while he forgives money to political parties. This is not at all carelessness and irresponsibility, but a maneuver by the head of state to turn the opposition, too, into accomplices in the disgraceful forgiveness imposed on the country by his government. (What will happen with the opposition? Will it use the forgiven money to buy candy, or will it buy electric cable for the capital?) L. SKIROJ

Mejdani and Meta

Complaints against Grunasi increase page 9 Telenorba’s deception began at TVSH page 19 “Revenge” wants to return home page 12 Albanian football clubs in crisis page 23

The newspaper “Koha Jonë” apologizes to all its readers for not publishing yesterday’s issue, which was not circulated because the printing house was closed for the Christmas holiday.