GREEK HELSINKI MONITOR

RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

ANTI-GREEK RHETORIC BEFORE ALBANIAN ELECTIONS.

 

Vol. 3, No. 69, 

19 September 2000

 Petro Koci,
a Socialist Party secretary, said in Himara on 13 September
that "we should have an Albanian patriot as the [city's]
mayor to reverse the trend of having Greek-speaking mayors
there," "Albanian Daily News" reported.
 Traditionally, Himara is a stronghold of the Human
Rights Union Party (PBDNJ), which represents the Greek
minority in southern Albania and which has formed
coalitions with both the Socialist Party (PS) and its
rival--the Democratic Party (PD)--in the past.
 Koci suggested, however, that the Socialists and
Democrats should join forces against the PBDNJ candidate
Vasil Bollano. Even though both PD and PS officials said
that they expect to win the elections there, PD
representatives have already pledged to support an ethnic
Albanian Socialist in the second round of voting against
Bollano, should the PD lose in the first round.
 On a local election campaign poster, the Socialists
use the slogan: "Himara has always been and will be
Albanian." The head of the PBDNJ, Vasil Melo, referred to
the nationalist rhetoric as "rubbish." (Fabian Schmidt)