Kosovar Fadil Bytyçi arrested in Rinas; he had stolen 2.1 million marks two years earlier PAGE 7

Socialist leader Nano begins his tour of meetings with socialists in Berat yesterday The crow hunt is over; Berisha has lost to the street gangs • Socialist must not be provoked, because they react from the heart, Mr. Berisha. • We will remove from local government the lawless, wrongdoers, irresponsible people and those who abuse citizens’ votes and Albanian taxpayers’ funds. • In less than a month, 10 kilometers of highway construction on the national road network have advanced at lightning speed. In less than a month, not a single meter of road has been rebuilt or repaired in the towns because of Berisha’s local government, from Tirana to Skrapar, and from Vlora to Tropojë. • The national roads have become much more passable thanks to an investment not seen for decades, since the 1950s. But as soon as you enter the towns, the potholes of Berisha’s administrations begin, growing deeper and remaining unrepaired despite the money provided by the government. • We will be campaigning, but we will not allow campaigning to obstruct the implementation of government programs and the delivery of tangible results for citizens. SPECIAL REPORT FROM BERAT ON PAGES 3–4

Berisha seeks to sabotage the face-off; he is terrified of the results After PD’s latest rejection of the President of the Republic’s invitation, and after its right-wing leaders, Selfo and Ngjela, left the meeting in which they were participating, it is becoming clear to everyone that PD and Berisha are playing every card in order to declare the CEC’s lack of legitimacy and, consequently, to reject the outcome of the voting in the upcoming elections, in which they already sense their next defeat. That Berisha would play this game is as clear as day! Abandoned by many potential figures in his party, he is becoming increasingly isolated and is now keeping the people around him going on oxygen and dreams, promising them positions in an imminent victory. The voting will show whether or not Berisha will win. If PD loses, that will prove fatal for Berisha, because his supporters will abandon him, finally realizing that with Berisha at its head, PD will never come to power. For this reason, Berisha does not want elections. He fears a democratic showdown and, in order to protect his property, PD, he wants to sabotage that showdown. The CEC cannot play the role it played in Berisha’s time: stealing votes. It can easily be monitored in many ways, from foreign observers to nonstop filming while it works. But Berisha does not want a showdown! Even if PS and the President offered Berisha the chance to appoint the entire CEC himself, he would still find some other reason to challenge the election results. For now, Berisha is trying to push the President into violating the Constitution so that he can then accuse him of this crime, but the President is not unwell and cannot fall into such a naive trap. Understanding this truth, Berisha is now losing his nerve! Yesterday’s interview with Ngjela showed this, as he irresponsibly called on the opposition to rise up in revolt! Ngjela’s words are not worth taking seriously, but he is inspired by Berisha and is trying to inspire Berisha. Before making any emotional decision, Berisha should remember that this same Ngjela fed this idea to King Zog in 1997, and should consider what a [?] this latter turned out to be. To call for revolts today, when the Albanian people have got down to work and become more rational in their judgment, means seeking to turn this people back and consign it to the Middle Ages! It means destroying everything simply because you dislike the truth! This is not democratic politics. Now that people have returned to work, Berisha’s rallies are dwindling too, because Democrats cannot abandon their jobs and leave their families without bread just because Berisha feels like holding folkloric rallies. As for Ngjela’s revolutionary calls for popular revolts, these are the latest pieces of nonsense from PD’s patients who, having eaten the opposition’s flesh, are now trying to eat its bones too, because there is nothing more they can do to Albania!

A storm of inspections by the State Audit and the Ministry of Local Government in municipalities and communes • Abuse of tenders for the renovation of offices or other buildings, falsification of workers’ wages, or overspending of funds • The mayor of Divjakë began the tender procedures for renovating the municipal offices on this day, [?] of the funds • No documentation whatsoever was kept on how the tender was conducted • Five million lekë, before the funds arrived • No documentation whatsoever was kept on how the tender was conducted • Five million lekë, before the funds arrived • The funding for this municipality’s works for 2000 was fully released in the first four months of the year; the entire fund planned for this municipality for 2000 was fully released in the first four months of the year

The reason is to pave the way for implementing the PS statute, to close off any possible speculation, and to give the PS room to deal with more important issues than the discussion of two mandates PAGE 5

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