After the earthquake, resignations: Durollari and Ermenji leave; PS, 97 MPs, PD only 28. Eight parties in parliament. Monarchy results are archived

The pink stain of the last Sunday in June spread the day before yesterday across almost the entire map of Albania. Albanians showed that, during the seven densely packed days of the previous week, they had not changed their desire to send President Berisha and the party he had led for five years into opposition. The day before yesterday, the PS victory became more resounding, while the PD defeat became deeper. The Balkan country thus experienced, amid anar[k]hy and weapons, the taste of the free vote; the socialists, that of victory champagne; while the democrats are preparing for the opposition season, whose length nobody yet knows. The day before yesterday Albania brought five years of blue dominance to an end, voting as it knows how to vote: always against, with resentment, en bloc and in a referendum-like manner. That is, as it had voted in 1992. The second round of voting fully confirmed this trend, producing 19 socialist winners, only six democrats, and one representative each from the smaller parties, which coped poorly with the left-wing “wave” that swept through the elections. This was the democrats’ worst electoral result since the party was founded in December 1990. While the first round showed that the PD had lost the race to the socialists, the runoff held the day before yesterday confirmed that Berisha’s party has the same low level of popularity in the South and the North, in “rebel” and “normal” areas, and in historically problematic regions as well as those considered “strongholds of democracy.” It is enough to note that the PS won in Kavajë, where Nano had stopped for the first time in seven years just two weeks earlier, when he had coffee for a few minutes with Prime Minister Fino. Launched in the noisy and politically outdated electoral tour of its de facto leader, the PD campaign thus came to an end that was not so unexpected for Albanians, although it surprised foreigners quite a bit. The “Berisha factor” fell, and with it fell the five-year style of governance that had failed to bring Albania to the happy shores promised in March ’92. The PD’s defeat therefore marks the fall of the model for governing the country, and Albanians delivered this message quite clearly. With the conclusion of the second round of elections, it seems that the political aspect of a crisis that plunged Albania into the most spectacular postwar chaos has been resolved. The victory emerging from the ballot boxes confirms that the next government will have a political mandate backed by a two-thirds parliamentary majority, controlled by the group of more than 95 PS MPs, as well as the two other coalition parties, PSD and PAD. The executive, expected to be announced in the next two weeks, will be a compromise formula, in which the arithmetic aspect will nevertheless be of secondary importance compared with the programmatic compromise among the three parties. Otherwise, if the next coalition takes the form of a formal compromise unbalanced by the PS’s great specific weight in the decisions to be made, the mixed government of Albanian pluralism will suffer the fate of Aleksandër Meksi’s initial cabinet. The PD’s former allies know something about this. Moreover, the next government will undoubtedly find Albania in the worst state of ruin remembered from the last 30 years. From disarmament to the [unclear] and the rebuilding of institutions, the new governing side will have to push itself to the limits of tolerance that the political class of a Balkan country can allow itself. Albanians need a new renewal after the storm. We need an American Eden, but to achieve this we need new political leaders and a new style of governance. The vote we cast gives the country the opportunity to be governed in peace and stability. The winners have the floor. SKËNDER MINXHOZI

Zone 4, 2 commissioners killed Page 7

Following my election as an independent MP in the People’s Assembly, and bearing in mind that the mandate of an MP is legally incompatible with any kind of private position, I hereby resign as director of the independent newspaper “Koha Jonë.” Following this, the newspaper’s editorial office will be managed by the editor-in-chief and a Board, in accordance with Western principles. The names of the Board members will be made public within a few days. NIKOLLË LESI

Yesterday, the owner of radio “KOHA,” Nikollë Lesi, appointed the journalist and well-known television show host Ardian Krasta as director of the radio station.

The future Prime Minister Nano prefers Golem for his Sunday beach outing, where Shehu suffered a spectacular defeat.

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