Open letter from MP SERVET PËLLUMBI addressed to the top Socialist leaders. The Socialist leader is taking the party to the right. His reform may lead to a split Open letter from MP SERVET PËLLUMBI addressed to the top Socialist leaders Nano is betraying the SP The Socialist leader is taking the party to the right. His reform may lead to a split Pages 4-5

BY Andi Bushati The former number two of the SP, Servet Pëllumbi, today criticized in an open letter addressed to the General Steering Committee of the Socialist Party, Fatos Nano’s attempts to steer the SP toward the right-centre. The letter from the symbol of anti-communism calls on his former colleagues to reflect on Fatos Nano’s two proposals. First, the one that envisages the reform process as a shift of the SP toward the centre, and second, the declaration that the political line and activity of the party is the government’s program, which is centre-right. Pëllumbi counters firmly: No and no. According to the anti-communism figure, there are three arguments that do not allow the SP to do such a thing. First, the creation of the impression that the SP’s victory as a left-wing party was accidental. Second, that if the SP were to move toward the right-centre, then reform could not be spoken of on the basis of its own characteristic. And third, Pëllumbi claims it is absurd that when the people grow poorer and move left, the leaders should move right. But the debate that the former deputy chairman of the SP wants to open, on the eve of the National Conference, expected to take place at the end of November, is not intended only to start an ideological polemic within the ranks of the majority party. More than the need to see what place the SP will occupy in the Albanian political spectrum, it is driven by more practical interests. Yesterday Mr. Pëllumbi, together with everyone else, came out defeated from the battle with Nano after the latter’s Motion. But despite the influence and sympathy they enjoyed within the party, they managed to convince only a few supporters regarding the accusations that the SP was becoming the party of one man. Now things have changed. Along with leading the party, Nano and his clan have also taken on the responsibilities of governing. And this is precisely the moment when the group around Servet Pëllumbi must create its platform to oppose the old rivals. By trying not to allow the SP program to break away toward the right-centre (that is, toward unification with that of the government), the professor seeks to lay the foundations of an opposition within the party. During this time the government will be forced, willingly or unwillingly, to adopt many restrictive measures that will also affect the SP electorate. The VAT increase, the tightening of certain brackets, the rise in prices are measures that will create dissatisfaction even among those who gave their vote a pink color. And in a not-too-distant future this dissatisfaction will be channeled toward those who were the first to raise their voices against the government’s right-wing reforms. Toward those who opposed Nano’s calls: “Brothers, get involved in the standard reforms.” By opposing the rightward orientation of the SP, Pëllumbi and others aim today to take the electorate that Nano will lose tomorrow, hoping that one day, disappointed by the harshness of the reform, they may say: The left are us.

German goalkeeper Kahn, as he pulls the ball out of the net for the third time last night (Page 31) REUTERS

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