The celebration ends without a protagonist. The duel is postponed until Sunday Runoff. Spartak Ngjela, Buron Kaceli and Emin Riza are eliminated. Besnik Mustafaj falls 4 votes short of victory page 3 -

BY SABRI GODO With the opening of the autumn session, Parliament will consider a bill on speedboats. I do not know what this bill says, which was given so much impetus by the Italian Prime Minister’s recent visit to Tirana. I have the impression that once again we are circling around the bull. But the discussion about organized crime in Albania has reached a point that absolutely calls for a broader perspective. Albania has long been accused of being the country with the highest intensity in the region of trafficking in migrants, smuggling, drugs and prostitution. The opposition would naturally join in this grave denunciation from abroad. The left-wing coalition in power, caught between two fires, has occasionally taken some measures, say, regarding customs, but in general has behaved as though unmoved by the accusations, like a fat goose that does not get wet no matter how hard it rains, because its feathers are smooth. Now we must give a clear answer: do we accept the accusation because we still have to live with it, or will we reject it by fighting trafficking with all the strength God has given us? If we choose the latter, we must think about the causes that brought us to this state, the consequences it carries, and the ways to emerge from it. In 1991, the walls separating Albania from the World fell. Many of us squandered the freedom we had won. Along with the good things from the outside world, the bad things also entered here, the very things from which the West itself suffers. This was unavoidable. The political forces are responsible for failing to understand that the Mafia would quickly infiltrate, with the aim of bringing the government and the people themselves to their knees. As an inexperienced political class, we left the Mafia free rein; wine, oil and vinegar were mixed together. As the Republican Party, we warned about this as early as 1992, ’93 and ’94, but our voice was lost as if in the desert. Today, it cannot be denied that the Mafia controls important sections of the state and that some find the support of powerful authorities. Otherwise, there is no way to explain such a flourishing of the Mafia, making Albania the region’s most troubling country in just a few years. The Mafia has its tentacles in government and poisons the life of the people, who have nothing to do with trafficking but suffer greatly under corruption, the Mafia’s close companion. (Continued on page 11)

Page 11 Ambassador Limpreht and the representative of the Texas company. Photo: P.ILO

Two old women are exchanged at home Page 21