MAJKO BEGINS HIS TOUR OF EUROPE; FIRST MEETING WITH ZHOSPEN PAGE 4

VENICE COMMISSION: CONSTITUTION OF INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS PAGE 3

I WILL RESPECT THE CONSTITUTION SUPPORTED BY MORE THAN 50% OF ALBANIANS PAGE 16

TIRANA HAS STILL NOT PUBLISHED THE VOTER LISTS PAGE 4

Whoever has stolen will go to prison THEY WANT TO DEEPEN THE CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE THAT THIS GOVERNMENT, TOO, STEALS BY ILIR META I do not want to dismiss a slander, but to denounce a crime: the deliberate, fully conscious falsification of a state agreement between the two transport ministers of Albania and Austria, on behalf of their respective governments. For the first time in so many years, the Albanian press has reached the point of committing such a crime, which seriously harms the interests of the Albanian state. It is particularly outrageous. It is also an affront to the Austrian state’s willingness to help and contribute to rebuilding and reviving the railway system in Albania, without which there can never be modern infrastructure. We can no longer pretend that we have heard nothing or read nothing about such a crime as the one committed yesterday in the leading independent newspaper “Koha Jonë”. I want to express my highest regard for this newspaper over the years. I have regarded it as a fellow fighter on many important and fundamental issues, but of course we can no longer pretend that we do not see what is happening. Especially when such crimes are accompanied by open blackmail against the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Albania and against the Government of Albania, with the aim of making certain claims appear true, promoted politically and in other ways by a particular mafia seeking to discredit this government from the very beginning. This is a government whose strongest cards are its moral standing and its commitment to fighting corruption. I believe, and I pledge, that this government will prove that to the very end. All these attacks are intended to say that everyone in Albania is corrupt, that all government officials are corrupt, and that newspapers treat everyone alike. Everyone is equally mired in the corruption that took hold over these eight years. So, according to them, the “dhejtorists” are corrupt, Majko and Meta are corrupt, and so is everyone else. In fact, this only serves to deepen the crisis of confidence—not merely in the Government, but in politics in the country. The aim is to destroy faith that there is a government capable of freeing the country from the grip of the corruption that has become so firmly entrenched in our country over these eight years. This is a battle for life or death, and we will win it. Because this is not an individual battle, but a battle for everyone. over these eight years. It is my institutional duty to lead the fight against corruption, which has already begun and which we will pursue to the very end, without any hesitation or wavering. This is a fight for life or death between crime and Albania’s European future. Albania cannot become a mafia state and a corrupt state, held hostage by a few irresponsible politicians who, for the sake of their personal interests, are ready to destroy the interests of the country and the national interest, as they have already shown. Albanian Deputy Prime Minister Ilir Meta (Photo: A.Rama) Leonard Burnaci, head of the Railways in Durrës: “The tender is legal!”

The DP’s boycott does not serve democracy