Fatos Nano instructs the SP branches to make promises to rival candidates. Where they refuse, they should be threatened until they withdraw Vasil Melo of the PBDNJ: “The SP is trying to buy our candidates” page 2

BY EDI LESI In every democratic state, election campaigns involve political clashes over the alternatives presented to voters; there is irony, sarcasm, debate, and polls that rise and fall, but—

In every democratic state, election campaigns involve political clashes over the alternatives presented to voters; there is irony, sarcasm, debate, and polls that rise and fall, but under no circumstances are words such as “thief,” “beast,” “your vote or your head,” “madman,” “criminal,” etc., used for an opponent—words that no Western politician utters, and whose enactment in deeds is certainly never even contemplated, as unfortunately happens in Albania. and polls that rise and fall, but under no circumstances are words such as “thief,” “beast,” “your vote or your head,” “madman,” “criminal,” etc., used for an opponent—words that no Western politician utters, and whose enactment in deeds is certainly never even contemplated, as unfortunately happens in Albania. Electoral tension in our country has shown that it can turn into chaos, as on 26 May ’96 or in March–June ’97. The consequences of these disturbances have fallen on ordinary voters, who, blinded by their party leaders, run blindly from one ballot box to another without knowing exactly what will become of their future. I say the future of ordinary voters, because the future of party leaders is eternally the present: having money, cars, guards, villas, and trips abroad at their disposal, paid for with money that ultimately comes from voters’ taxes. This is what is happening in this campaign for the local elections of 1 October, too. In the first days of the campaign, Nano and Berisha, the two people who set off chain reactions in the politics of violence, declared that they would not use harsh language or insults, or contemplate staging violence. It was not long before the attacks began; Nano publicly told the leader of the DP that “the beast-Berisha must be removed from politics,” while a few days later the man whom Nano had turned into a beast appeared at a rally in Korçë and later in Shkodër and Durrës, where he physically threatened the Socialist leader. Naturally, Berisha is not one to joke around when it comes to burning things and physical elimination. Things are now escalating, and only another body, outside Albanian politics, can slow the dizzying pace of insults and the danger of a repeat of some 14 September or a “plan as the DP knows it.” The efforts of mediators based in Tirana have not been lacking so far, but they appear insufficient to normalize the situation. Calling on an organization for help—one that, at least, has not yet been anathematized by either side of Albanian politics—therefore seems to remain the only key to resolving the conflict and, in fact, the main task of politics: preventing a tragedy like March ’97. (Continued on page 2)

The candidate of the left for the Tirana Municipality once again expresses confidence in victory “Our choice to reach all of Tirana and communicate with people is the best one, and it is already bearing fruit, even though it is a new approach in the limited tradition Albanian politics has for organizing election campaigns” Page 7

PD Chairman Berisha, last night at the “Rogner” hotel, after the meeting with the American Ambassador, Limpreht. Photo: P. ILO