GOVERNMENTS CHANGES IN ALBANIA : SACKINGS AND DOUBTS

AIM TIRANA, 18 January 2000

Not even 100 days have passed since the Cabinet of the 30-year-old Premier Ilir Meta was formed, when he dismissed two important members, disturbing so the unusual tranquility of the first days of January. Meta's first victims were the Minister of Economy and Privatization, Zef Preci and the Minister of State, Prec Zogaj.

The charges against two ministers range from corruptions to disagreement with the Premier. According to the Premier's office, the minister of Economy, Preci, was sacked because of misuse in issuing licenses for importation of fuel by favoring two companies pre selected by him. According to the official version, such an act endangered the obligatory reserves of oil and gas, which should be at the Albanian state disposal at any moment. This fact was exposed to that extend by the local medias, that was speculated on the idea of shutting down Albania's only international airport, at Rinas under the excuse of lack of fuel.

While for the minister of State, Prec Zogaj the charge was less defined. According to the official version: disagreement with the Prime Minister and attempts to act on behalf of other ministers and even of the Prime Minister himself.

Both ministers reacted harshly against the decision of sacking them. Preci and Zogaj have accused Meta of acting under the smuggling clans' orders, which have penetrated in the Government. They have accused the minister of Finance, Anastas Angjeli as a person affected by the liberalization measures of oil market, initiated by Preci. Angjeli's brother is one of the biggest oil market bosses. Zogaj has gone further by accusing some Greek circles of trying to entrap Albania into "an energetic decoy" by making the Albanian oil market totally dependable on Greece.

In this climate of accuses and counter accuses, of course, it wasn't easy to find out the truth. Albanian President Rexhep Meidani, as usual after a lengthy silence, finally has signed the dismissing decree and both ministers have handed over the keys.

Premier Meta has secured a broad support in his blitz action recently. The bulk of local media have favored him. He didn't encounter any resistance in the rival group within the party, headed by chairman Nano, even more it seemed that Nano has been more pleased than Meta for the sacking of the two ministers. Also the reaction of the allies in the Governmental Coalition was vague. The Democratic Alliance party despite the sacking of one of their main leaders, continues to partake in the Coalition, which leads the country.

Probably, Premier Meta was lucid in undertaking this action, but the public opinion is not. Though the removal of two ministers, Zogaj and Preci, is considered as a positive signal by a considerable number of people, there are some weak points, even if we would accept the official version of the dismissal. Meta has not made very good calculations.

Both ministers are not socialists and have not served more than two months in the Cabinet. Both ministers are from the northern part of Albania and the only Catholics in the Cabinet.

The public opinion finds it difficult to believe that the corruption in Albania starts with ex-minister, Preci, without excluding the possible faults. It seems that Meta has taken the bull by the tail or wants to implement the saying " the fish rots from the head down, but it is cleaned up by the tail".

Now is no longer a secret that other ministers, more experienced and powerful than Preci and Zogaj, are rumored of ties with the smuggling network. None of them is sacked or has resigned or given up the mandate of deputy in order to give the possibility for normal investigation.

"I don't believe that the corruption is a non socialist phenomenon. It is socialist and anti-socialist of course," an independent observer in Tirana said.

It is a fact that Preci and Zogaj were the ministers with less political support in the Cabinet. Zef Preci entered Meta's Cabinet as a technician , after he was firstly knows as the Director of the Economics Studies Institute. He didn't have the support of any particular political lobby or any party participating in the Governmental Coalition. And secondly Zogaj came from a party that in June 97' elections didn't receive more than two percent of the suffrages.

The dismissed ministers were quickly substituted by Mustafa Muci, ex-chief of Meta's cabinet, and became the minister of Economy and Privatization, and Ilir Zela one of the leaders of the Eurosocialist Youth Forum. Both new ministers are 30-year-old and without experience in the governance. Their intellectual profile is less vague than that of the dismissed ministers, known as two first class intellectuals.

What adds to the doubt is the fact that a new standard was applied with the sacked ministers, was rejected only recently by the head of the Albanian executive. When the powerful Defense Minister Luan Hajdaraga rumored in many corruptive affairs was attacked by the press and his dependee in a scandal regarding the buying of food and clothes for the Albanian Army, the Premier openly favored him. At that time the Prime Minister Meta in a government meeting, where all most important country's media were present, declared: "I cannot sack a minister of charges that the justice system has not addressed first."

But the principle of presumably guilty didn't function for Preci and Zogaj. They were sent away on corruption charges and enabling the government's propaganda to strongly beat the drums of anti- corruption. The third Cabinet of the left center needed it badly. During two years and a half the corruption charges where the Achilles' heel of the current government. These charges led to the diminishing and further more to the fall of Nano's first Cabinet, only 13 months after a landslide victory in the 1997 Parliamentary elections. According to a World Bank survey, half a year ago, Albania was ranked among the most corrupted countries.

On this "administration cancer" the opposition is basing the pre elections campaign, expected to be staged in the summer. Its leader Sali Berisha in his tour undertaken in some country's districts is trying to convince the audience that Albania is led by one of the corrupted government ever existed.

As a reaction to this situation can be considered the latest move of Premier Meta. Since he came to power he can't help repeating the slogan he likes most: "We have come to serve and not to grab." In more than one occasion, the new Premier has declared that he will not spare any high official accused of misappropriation. Also sources close to him, echoed by the local press, have announced that soon the Cabinet may experience fresh reshuffles.

Serious commitment or political propaganda? A question hard to be answered after the sacking of the first ministers of Meta's Cabinet. The fact that was targeted ministers with less political support and serving shorter in the government casts doubts. Time will tell if the fight against corruption will remain one of the new Premier's priorities.

If he proceeds this way he can present himself with a powerful moral carte in the local elections of Summer as well as in the general elections a year later. But such an act cannot pass by without problems for the majority, which he represents. In this case many government officials have to deal with the justice system, which would bring about the undermining of the fragile balances and carefully established, within the Socialist party itself.

ANDI BUSHATI (AIM)