President Berisha appointed the new Prime Minister Yesterday at midday, President of the Republic Sali Berisha, acting on the basis of Article 28, paragraph 6, of Law No. 7491, dated 29.04.1991, “On the Main Constitutional Provisions,” appointed Mr Aleksandër Meksi Chairman of the Council of Ministers and tasked him with forming the new Government. President Berisha congratulated him on the vote of confidence he had received from the National Council of the Democratic Party and its parliamentary group for his candidacy as Prime Minister, and praised the willingness he had shown in meetings with the leaders of other parties to cooperate with them in structuring and forming the new Government. President Berisha expressed his conviction that the new cabinet would include, alongside those with experience, dedicated, honest and capable people, including representatives of other political forces, and that the new Government of Prime Minister Meksi would carry out its mission of fulfilling the Democratic Party’s programme. Prime Minister Meksi, after expressing his gratitude for the confidence placed in him to form the new cabinet, said that he was seriously and resolutely committed to forming a government that would meet the commitments and demands of the entire Albanian electorate.

The split in the Socialist Party has now happened. Unfortunately, it did not take place as a division between conservatives and possible reformers within the party, but as a split centred on Nano’s motion. Neither side has anything more to say than the other, and the differences between the groups are not reflected in ideas or solutions to the PS’s crisis. The split is legitimised precisely in terms of the form and path the party should follow toward the future. If time could stop, or, better still, if it had stopped on 11 June 1991, then this serious crisis of the PS would not have appeared with such intensity, engulfing all its instruments and sparing no one, young or old. The passage of time has weighed heavily on all the structures of this party, sparing no one who has spent even a few days under the roof of the party headquarters in Tirana and beneath the dictates of the party’s Marxist programme. They do not know what should be done tomorrow, and they lack the human resources to face even one more day of their future in Albanian politics. For years, corrosion has worked heavily upon them, turning the party into an inert element with no function in the lives of Albanians. Just as their leader spoke of the presence of “gravel” in the government that makes up his party, the current lot, unable to exclude even themselves from the possibility, have turned into little stones. The petrification of this party was inevitable. Change could not take place in a dynamic period of history, when Albanians’ lives were functioning differently. For years they had been institutionally divorced from the people they claimed as their electorate. On the last day they had the chance to confront the crisis they had fallen into through the numbers, they walked away soaked, with the revolutionary thought that battle is better than defeat. That may happen in war, but not on election day. When conversion is justified as the basis for reform, one must also expect the conversion of the party’s entire substance. This conversion took place and atrophied the whole Socialist Party. But what cannot happen in chemistry cannot happen in the political operation first launched by Alia and later used by Nano. Conversion has nothing to do with reform. It resembles a shift onto a trajectory that rises or at least descends. Today, the outdated socialists find themselves in a period far removed from the present. Each has remained in the same shadow, and all the time they have busied themselves with the plight of their victims without leaving themselves a little time or love. Between politics and resistance, they have chosen resistance for the sake of the group, in a life that no longer sustains them. Their defeat is total and now formalised. Even the younger members of this party have been assimilated by the old body of the Socialist Party. In a debate between Meta and Majko, the drama of all the generations active in the party became apparent. Their entire debate had the profile of a riddle. It is difficult for things to be otherwise in a party preserved in aspic, which has now taken on the full appearance of a stone that no longer moves.

President Berisha at the Central and Eastern European Economic Summit From 7 to 9 July, the Central and Eastern European Economic Summit, organised by the World Economic Forum, will be held in Salzburg under the patronage of Austrian President Tomas Klestil. Heads of state and government from Austria, Poland, Hungary, Romania, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and other countries will take part in the summit. Also, at this summit hosted under the patronage of President Klestil, a delegation from Albania headed by the President of the Republic, Sali Berisha, will participate. President Berisha is expected to meet with his counterparts and speak at the plenary session on the afternoon of the 7th about peace and security in the region. The purpose of this summit is to promote regional cooperation among the participating countries. Alongside the plenary sessions, parallel sessions will also be organised, attended not only by heads of state but also by ministers and political analysts, to discuss development, security, integration, economic reforms, development of the private sector, and other issues.

Tomorrow in the PS: We can no longer speak of a constructive debate within the PS, but of a fierce political battle whose outcome will determine which clan survives and leads the PS. “Opa,” “pebbles,” “gravel,” “florin” and “the palace-dwellers” are among the harshest terms Socialist leaders have directed at one another in recent days. Through his harsh motion, Nano has called for the replacement of the PS leadership, and the response from several PS leaders has been just as fierce. According to some sources in the PS, they have asked Nano to resign as party chairman. In the struggle for survival, the clans in the PS do not appear willing to tolerate one another. Now in the PS, everyone is against everyone. In a comment to “RD,” the leader of the Republicans, Godo, sees the reasons that led Nano to make such a harsh motion as closely connected to the heavy defeat suffered by the PS in the 26 May elections, which in some way also determined his continued stay in prison, serving the sentence imposed by the courts. “Everyone in the PS is now trying to blame someone else for the mistakes that led to the election defeat,” Godo commented on the latest political developments in the PS. Regarding Nano’s motion, Godo says he does not think it will achieve anything for the PS. According to Godo, the reasons that led Nano to seek the removal of leading figures from the PS are also connected to Nano’s own fate. “For the past three years,” Godo said, “the Socialist leaders called for Nano’s release from prison, and since they could not release him, Nano is now trying to throw them out of the party.” As for how events in the PS may develop, Godo considers it possible that Nano’s clan’s mission—and Nano himself as chairman of the PS—will be defeated. B. KASMI

Proceedings of the Annual Session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly PAGE 2

After the motion by the imprisoned leader of the Socialists PAGE 3

Interview with Leontiev Çuçi and the “Voice of America” radio

BBC: Meta–Majko debate Ilir Meta: Renewal of the PS risks becoming partial and opportunistic Pandeli Majko: To tell the truth, I felt more in tune with Nano’s voice, which I hadn’t heard for 3 years Question: What is your position on Mr Nano’s motion? - (I.M.) As regards the renewal of our party, let us consider the purpose of the proposal put forward by PS Chairman Nano. The renewal of the PS risks becoming partial and opportunistic, given that he is calling for the second phase of the PS Congress to be convened very soon and is specifying more concretely… 26–27 July ’96, with the delegates elected in the first phase. Question: Mr Majko, it seems that you do not share Mr Meta’s position, since you have signed the motion that Mr Nano does not recognise. - (P.M.) Certainly. In the PS there is no question of this motion being opportunistic, because this is a motion prepared entirely by the congress and for its congress, as part of the PS renewal process, which must be complete, lasting and long-term. This can only be achieved through an open debate in our organisations. (I.M.) But, Comrade Majko, it seems you have not read the draft resolution submitted and signed by the PS Chairman. Its first point summarises the second phase of the PS Congress for 26–27 July, with the delegates from the first phase. And I am not prejudging the motion as an opportunistic ploy; rather, I am warning that with such urgency, renewal could turn into an opportunistic ploy. So we are calling for a complete, comprehensive renewal, and for the right not to be denied… continued on page 2

PS GRAVEL... NOTHING BUT GRAVEL—SO THAT’S WHAT THE WHOLE JUG BUSINESS WAS ABOUT! PS. Satirical illustration: a gravel hauler, a pile of gravel, and a man speaking.

Reaction from the Press and Information Office attached to the President of the Republic Not flirtations with political opponents, but unwavering respect for them, constitute the unchanging constant in the President of the Republic’s attitude toward his opponents. In recent days, various journalists and commentators have irresponsibly allowed themselves to imagine and make statements about groups within the leadership of the PS flirting with the President. This has happened in the extremist left-wing press—the pamphlets “ZP” and “Koha Jonë” and their offshoots—but, unfortunately, also in the right-wing press, the newspaper “Albania” and some others. One newspaper even writes that the President has been attributed, without any supporting argument, documents belonging to this party that have no connection whatsoever with the institution of the President. Regarding all this, the President’s spokesperson states that we are dealing with an unworthy and improper press campaign, in which journalists and groups of journalists, in order to justify and somehow conceal their own leanings and flirtations with left-wing or non-left-wing political groupings, concoct and irresponsibly imagine insinuations, which these groupings have not helped bring about and which, for their own clear interests, they attribute to the President of the Republic. The President’s spokesperson also states that it is not flirtations with political opponents, but unwavering respect, that constitute the unchanging constant in the President of the Republic’s attitude toward them.