This Press Review includes news and reports from the following
newspapers: "Gazeta Shqiptare", "Shekulli", "Tema", "Korrieri", "Albania', "Koha Jone, "RD', "ZP", "Panorama", "Shqip", "Metropol", "Standard", "Tirana Observer", "Republika", "Telegraf", "Tirana Observer"


ELECTORAL ISSUES/ID CARDS

President: No violence in elections, Bosch: End family voting

The President of the Republic of Albania, Bamir Topi, presented certificates today to 50 Albanian women who took part in an OSCE Presence project to enhance the role of women in governance. The project followed the approval of Albania's Gender Equality Law and the Electoral Code which stipulate a 30 percent quota for representation of women in all legislative, executive and judicial bodies. As the keynote speaker, President Topi said: "After receiving a diploma, the manner in which this knowledge about democracy is then interpreted is very important." He added: "You have to know how to get the message across because Albanian society has a very great need that the elections on 28 June are held in a truly free manner and in a calm climate."
In light of 28 June parliamentary elections, the Head of Presence in Albania, Ambassador Robert Bosch, emphasized the importance of increasing the participation of women in governance. He also said that family voting - whereby one family member casts ballots on behalf of the entire family, or a husband and wife enter the voting booth together- should not be tolerated as it has been in previous elections. "Excusing such behaviour as just being part of the 'Albanian culture' is no longer good enough in the year 2009,"
he said at the ceremony. "To show that Albanian political actors are serious about pursuing their integration ambitions, especially now as a NATO member country, they should all be publicly standing firm and resolute in condemning such practices."

As part of the governance project, 50 women across the country and from across the political spectrum received training on advocacy, public speaking, message development, media relations, public debates, constituency meetings and effective decision-making. The aim was to increase their ability to act as an effective lobbying force and to prepare them for Election Day. Other keynote speakers at the award ceremony included the Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Henk G.C. van den Dool, as well as the Chargé d'Affaires of the Embassy of Sweden, Office in Tirana, Elisabeth Stam. The training, which was implemented by a local non-governmental organization, Partners Albania, was the first part of a three-year project on enhancing the role of women in governance which is funded by the Governments of the Netherlands and of Sweden.

SP calls upon citizens to apply for ID Cards

The Socialist Party called upon the citizens who do not have a passport to make sure they go and apply in order to guarantee their right to vote. The members of the party’s Executive Board Lindita Nikolla made such appeals in a press conference only two days before the end of the application deadline.
“In the meantime, we want to remind to all those citizens who have applied but they have not received their ID Cards yet, to go and do so. Nikolla also called on all citizens to go and check their names and other data on the voters’ list in order to have time to repair any inaccuracies.

CEC: Voting Centres in 500 private buildings

According to the papers, the Central Election Commission is expected to discuss today the locations where the Voting Centres will be set up in each region of the country. According to the media, among the 4812 Voting Centres around Albania, about 10% of them will be placed in non-public premises. The Socialist Party representative near the CEC, Genc Gjoncaj said that they would prefer to have as many as possible Voting Centres in public spaces.

Kuli: We’ll not allow campaigning activities in hospitals

The Director of the Tirana University Hospital Centre has warned the heads of the service sections that they risk to be dismissed in case they use the hospital premises for political campaigning purposes. Gjeorgjina Kuli said that political parties are accusing the health sector for no achievements made in recent years and they are using health institutions for political purposes.

IPR Marketing poll puts DP ahead in 28 June elections

Only two weeks before the elections, IPR Marketing polling company and Ora News TV published the latest results of a poll on which political force is expected to win the 28 June elections. The poll places Democratic Party (DP) ahead with 42.6 percent of the national vote followed by the Socialist Party
(SP) with 39.6 percent and the Socialist Movement for Integration (SMI) with
7.5 percent. The poll shows a decrease of the popular support for the SP which until a month ago kept the winning position. The interesting part of this last poll seems to be the fact that the smaller parties have increased their support percentage where G99 for example being a new party has accumulated 3.5 percent of the support. In terms of coalition, the poll results showed that the right wing coalition headed by DP gathered 48.6 percent, the left wing coalition headed by SP was positioned second with
43.8 percent followed by the other left wing coalition headed by SMI with
7.5 percent of the popular vote if the elections were to be held on the day the poll was fielded.

SP branch chair violated in police presence

According to the papers, chair of the Socialist Party branch in the village if Gjoçaj in Peqin, district of Elbasan, Nazmi Xhyra got into a violent incident in the presence of the police. While Xhyra was heading back to his village, he was stopped on the main road segment of Elbasan-Peqin road by another vehicle where several persons approached Xhyra and started to offend him and picking on him tearing his shirt and saying that he was campaigning against the Democratic Party. The violent offence continued for some 15 minutes while the road police patrol was standing only 10 meters away without doing anything. Xhyra has called the SP headquarters and the offenders continued to threaten Xhyra. Immediately after the incident Xhyra went on a press conference from the SP headquarters in Elbasan and emphasized that he did not provoke in any way the incident. This seems to be the third major political incident after a violent incident in Korça with a socialist being hit and the second one in Durres with the killing of a DP activist.


ECONOMY

Economy in crisis, Government will ask IMF for help

The Albanian newspapers quote a Reuters article published by the Guardian which says that although once isolated, Albania is now exposed to the world economic crisis and international officials say the government that wins elections later this month will likely turn to the IMF for help. “Ahead of the June 28 poll, Prime Minister Sali Berisha says the economy in his nation of 3.3 million people is still growing more than four percent. Yet economists and ordinary Albanians interviewed this month say years of robust economic growth in the ex-Stalinist country seem to be coming to a halt. The government has been ploughing money into building roads to help pep up the economy, and high public works costs could push the new government to seek help from the International Monetary Fund, as Serbia and Bosnia have done in recent months.

The author quotes an international official who has allegedly said”
Certainly that if I was a new government coming back I'd want the IMF. The government could take hard decisions and blame the IMF ... Even if
(Berisha's) Democrats win, they'll come back to the Fund." The IMF forecasts a 0.4 to 0.5 percent expansion in 2009, a big slowdown from 2008 growth that it estimates at 6.8 percent although mild compared with the rest of recession-hit Europe. "A positive growth scenario would be a growth rate of zero. That would be the highest growth rate in Europe," said Mario Holzner, an economist at Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies. As for the government forecast of more than 4 percent growth, he added: "That's bogus, that's wishful thinking. It's understandable because there is an election in the end of June."


PORPERTY ISSUES

Criteria to be met for the property compensation

The Property Restitution and Compensation Agency (PRCA) Director Elvis Cefa explained yesterday the criteria which should be met by an applicant in order to benefit from the 6 million USD of this year. According to him, the applicant should not have profited from the financial or physical compensation before and should not have been granted the right of the first buyer preference. He also stressed hat priority will be given to files which have been submitted earlier. The final lists of the persons who will benefit from this year’s fund are expected to be completed in September. The registration and requests acceptance process has already started and it will continue for 30 days. According to the decision of the Council of Ministers, PRCA will exclude immediately from the compensation process those former owners who present false data.


TRAFFICKING

State Department issues Trafficking in Persons Report, Albania remains source country

“Albania is a source country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor, including forced begging,”
states the US State Department Trafficking in Persons 2009 Report, which was published yesterday. “The Government of Albania does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. The government demonstrated increased political will to combat human trafficking over the last year, particularly through progress made in its efforts to identify victims of trafficking.
Concerns remained regarding whether the government vigorously prosecuted labor trafficking offenders and public officials who participated in or facilitated human trafficking.” The Report recommends to the country to:
“vigorously investigate and prosecute law enforcement officials’ complicity in trafficking; vigorously prosecute labor trafficking offenders; continue to work with NGOs and civil society to ensure full implementation of the national mechanism for referring victims to service providers; continue funding victim assistance and protection services, including shelters; and improve existing prevention programs in collaboration with NGOs, including joint activities targeted at reducing the demand for human trafficking.

According to the Report, in 2008, Albania prosecuted 22 trafficking cases, compared with 49 in 2007, and convicted 26 trafficking offenders, compared with seven in 2007. All of the prosecutions and convictions involved sex trafficking of women or children. In 2008, sentences for convicted trafficking offenders ranged from two to 25 years’ imprisonment. (the full text of the report is at:
http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2009/index.htm)


RULE OF LAW

Kumbaro requests resignation of case Prosecution

The former State Intelligence officer, Ilir Kumbaro accused for the kidnapping and disappearance of an Albanian-Macedonian businessman requested the resignation of the prosecution of the case. Kumbaro’s attorneys requested for Xhevat Hana to leave the case because he has already had a say during the investigations holding the position of the Ombudsman Inspector.
The two attorneys said that the request is based on the fact that the defendant should not feel as being in a biased court session. In a previous court session, Hana had ruled that Kumbaro’s case be closed, but once the case went to the Serious Crimes Prosecution, the decision to consider Kumbaro as wanted by the Albanian justice returned into force. At present, Kumbaro is in Great Britain and the judges ruled against this request arguing that he was a person still wanted by the Albania justice.

Gërdec case, Omari’s resignation accepted

The Chair of the Tirana Court accepted on Tuesday the resignation of the judge Kreshnik Omari from the Gerdec case.  The resignation request was done by Omari arguing that he had a conflict of interest with this case because his wife - being a lawyer – had worked with the Legal Studio that was defending one of the accused ones. There are 28 people accused as responsible ones for causing the tragedy of 15 March 2008 among which Ylli Pinari, Mihal Delijorgji, former military high officers, including former Minister of Defence Fatmir Mediu.

Forged pensions, nine people accused

The Economic Crime and Anti-Corruption police team discovered eight cases of forged pensions, while the beneficiaries and one high official from the Social Insurance Office have been sent for penal proceedings. Nine people that benefited from the forge pension scheme will be accused for misappropriation while former inspector of the Social Insurance Company Luiza Subashi will face accuses of misusing her duties. The police sent the files to the Tirana Prosecution. In the last three years, the Regional Department of the Social Insurances has co-operated with the forces of the Economic Crime and Anti-Corruption police section and have suspended 1500 pensions, which were given on basis of false documents, while several implicated officials have been arrested.


INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Basha says we are on right path on visa regime issue

The Ministers of Foreign Affairs Lulzim Basha in a press conference promised that the European Commission will liberalize the visa regime with Albania within the next 12 months. Praising the statement issued by EU Council of Ministers, he said that Albania is progressing fast towards accomplishing one of the biggest promises of the “Berisha” Government. Basha said that the statement recognizes the significant achievements made by the country in the fields of reforms. He denied that allegedly the statement issued by the EU ranks Albania as the last country in the classification of countries in the Western Balkans.

Topi ‘rejects’ Tadic’s invitation

President of the Republic Bamir Topi ‘rejected’ the invitation of the Serb counterpart Boris Tadic to participate in the summit which will take place tomorrow in Novi Sad, Serbia. According to official sources from the President’s Office, the reason was the President’s busy agenda. However, unofficial sources confirmed that the President rejected the invitation because the President of Kosova Fatmir Sejdiu was not invited in the summit.
Kosova President was included from the region’s activities by the Presidents of Montenegro and fYRoM as well. During the summit organized by Montenegro, President Topi stressed the necessity to include Kosova in such initiatives, adding that the exclusion does not serve to the general interest of the region. He also expressed his regret for the absence of the Kosova President in the ceremony of the fYRoM President inauguration.


ENVIRONMENT

Belgian specialists to remove the asbestos

A group of Belgian specialists met yesterday with environment specialists in Fier Municipality to discuss about the risks of asbestos and the phases how to improve the polluted air. They met with Mayor Baftjar Zeqo and presented a project for the study of Fier area, following the alarm about the cancerous residues. According to the newspaper, the poisonous residues from the factories which were constructed more than 50 years ago have polluted Fier beyond the accepted norms. The Belgian specialists said that their project will start with the feasibility study of the area, then they will make the laboratory tests of the substances found and finally, the asbestos will be disintegrated through modern technology. Mayor Zeqo expressed his readiness to collaborate with the foreign specialists.


RIGHT-WING PARTIES

Berisha: Rama is alienating properties

Prime Minister Sali Berisha accused yesterday chair of the Socialist Party Edi Rama that he is allegedly trying to alienate the land properties in Shkoza in order to build welfare apartment blocks. According to the Prime Minister, there is a group of Shkoza inhabitants who have claimed ownership of the land where the apartments are planed to be build, and that Rama should solve this issue before he gets a permission to build. In a political rally in Shkoza he promised to make possible a 24 hours drinking water supplies.

Topalli says RP and DCP should not be voted

The papers report that the Democratic Party (DP) Deputy Chair and Speaker Jozefina Topalli asked the voters of Postriba Commune in Shkodra not to cast any votes for the Republican Party (RP) or the Demo-Christian Party (DCP), although they are part of the right wing coalition. She said that any vote for them is a vote against DP and a vote for Edi Rama. She said that DP will insist to win the necessary number of MP mandates to govern on its own, without the smaller parties such as Republicans or Demo-Christians.
According to the papers she has allegedly said that they are all spies, Mafia members or smugglers. This declaration caused the immediate reaction of RP and DCP local directors. RP local Chair Namik Kamberi said that he believed Topalli’s statement was a lapsus. DCP local Chair Mark Kroqi said that it is not normal to use such offences during an electoral campaign.


LEFT-WING PARTIES

Rama: I will be the next Prime Minister

In a political rally in the Fier region, chair of the Socialist Party Edi Rama said that it is time to say ‘Yes’ to a new force that would bring changes and build a modern, European Albania. He called on the citizens to not waste their vote for those 1ho in these 18 years have worked how to find corruptive possibilities for themselves. He said to the people of
Mallakastra: “I want to be elected Prime Minister so that I can work to fulfill your dreams. I want to be elected your Prime Minister so that the old games get over in exchange of a new politics of the people and for the people.

SP to employ 700 Police officials for the protection of the vote

The Socialist Party (SP) and a considerable number of former directors and officers of the State Police, dismissed in the framework of the reforms undertaken by the government, are creating a special structure called the Consultative Group for Public Order Issues which will physically defend the votes during the elections. Former State Police General Director Pjerin Ndreu said that this is not a parallel structure, but a consultative group instead which will function within the SP and will report all irregularities. According to him, groups of observers will be sent in field and their reports will be then sent to the State Police General Directorate and the public opinion. The consultative group is headed by a group of seven members, including the former Police General Director, the former Director of the Special Forces and the former Police Director of Korça and Elbasan.
They have drafted an action plan which includes measures which will be taken for the organizing of all former military and Police officials who have agreed to become part of this electoral structure. According to the newspaper, there are some 700 former officials in total who will cooperate with SP.

Meta: Berisha and Rama are avoiding debate

In a political rally in the area of Kombinat in Tirana, chair of the Socialist Movement for Integration (SMI) Ilir Meta explained the alternative that his party is offering to the Albanian electorate in this elections. The SMI chair said that he is ready to attend a public debate with the chairs of the two main parties – the SP and the DP – in order to confront their political programmes and that none of them have accepted such an invitation because according to him they are afraid to show that they have no ideas how to tackle important issues such as ones on economy.