BERISHA'S FAREWELL AND RETURN OF NANO

AIM Tirana, 27 July, 1997

Perhaps not by pure chance, but deputy Fatos Nano, at the opening session of the new Albanian parliament, was sitting in the same bench in which he had sat four years ago, before his arrest. While Nano has come back as a winner after four years in jail, his old political rival, who had been the omnipotent leader of Albania, Sali Berisha, is leaving defeated.

The head-spinning change of power took place peacefully in just 24 hours in Albania. Just as he had promised, Berisha had resigned and in his place, the parliament dominated by the Socialists, elected 53-year old physicist, Rexhep Mejdani, secretary general of the Socialist Party. Later on, prime minister of the four-month government of national reconciliation, Fino, also submitted his resignation, and then the new prime minister, Fatos Nano, was nominated.

The whole transfer of power went peacefully, but with bursts from Kalashnykovs in the background, this time to celebrate. The news about Berisha's resignation was welcomed with celebrating bursts of firearms in all the cities of Albania, and since Thursday evening, the Albanians can freely move about again.

The first thing the newly constituted parliament did was to abolish the state of emergency established on 2 March this year when the riots which led to armed rebellion against Berisha's regime had begun. For the first time after 144 days, on Thursday evening the Albanians could freely walk around at night, after abolishment of curfew. In fact, abolishment of the state emergency was rather a symbolic gesture of the new political establishment of Albania which had not wished to repeat election of the president under the threat of bayonets and with tanks in the streets, as it happened last March when Berisha was re-elected, several hours after introduction of the state of emergency.

The first session of the new parliament of Albania was boycotted, and this boycott will continue for another few weeks, by the Democratic Party of Sali Berisha, which experienced a catastrophic defeat in June elections. At the first session of the parliament, the Democrats were represented by a single deputy, secretary general of this party, Genc Pollo, who, having been permitted to read the declaration of his party, stated for the press that absence of the Democrats was a sign of their protest against the manner in which the elections of 29 June had been conducted. The Democratic Party believes that these elections were neither free nor fair, but it did admit their general result. Pollo denied permanent boycott of the parliament, but failed to specify when the Democrats will accept their mandates.

The boycott of the opening sessions of the parliament by the Democrats is linked to unwillingness primarily of Berisha to be present at inauguration ceremonies of his political rivals. Berisha had denied the election results in the regions of the south, where he and his party were not permitted to organize their campaign, but due to the crushing defeat in the capital and in the north of the country which had been believed to be his strongholds, he was forced to recognize the election results which were considered to be "adequate and acceptable" by international observers.

After opening of the new parliament, western diplomats came back to their boxes in it, especially the Americans, who had refused to participate in constituting of the previous parliament and the semi-posthumous ceremony of Berisha's re-election in March. The photo of the American ambassador Ms. Lino with the new president of Albania was published in almost all the newspapers in Tirana. This picture was also published in the greatest Italian newspaper La Republica with a wrong subtitle; it read: "The new president of Albanian Mejdani with his wife", causing some laughter. In the meantime, the press of the new opposition continued with the attacks against the USA and the American ambassador in Tirana, which are accused of offering support to former Albanian communists and to their return to power.

Even after the fourth pluralist elections since the fall of communism in 1991, the Albanians did not succeed to avoid a two-third majority of a single party, failing to fulfill the dream about a balanced parliament which would impose the necessity of ruling by a consensus. In 1991 the Communists, in 1992 the Democrats, in 1996 the Democrats again, but after manipulated elections, and in 1997 the Socialists dominated the Albanian parliament with more than two thirds of the votes which is a figure observed with fear in Albania because experience shows that it conceals an authoritarian rule and disregard of the opposition as if it does not exist at all.

The new parliament has representatives of 13 political parties in it, more than ever before. The Socialists have 101 seat out of the total of 155, while the Democrats have only 24; Social Democrats have nine seats, and 10 minor parties and three independent candidates fill up the remaining seats. Among the independent deputies who have for the first time been elected for the Albanian parliament are the editor of the greatest daily in the country Koha Jone, and a deputy from the south who calls himself a Communist, in the country in which the Communist Party has been banned. Two small parties, one left oriented - the Party of National Union, and one right oriented - the Albanian Democratic Union, have ethnic Albania in their programs.

Rexhep Mejdani will be the new president of Albania, but not its powerful man. The Socialists who have come to power have made it clear that the president will be rather a ceremonial figure. while the prime minister will be the figure no. 1 in the country, by model of parliamentary republics such as Italy and Greece.

It is interesting to look at the similarities and differences between the former president Berisha and the newly elected president Mejdani. Both are 53 years old, both are of Muslim religion, both have graduated in France, Berisha is from the north of Albania, from a village near Kosovo, Mejdani was born in Tirana, but his family is also by origin from Kosovo. And while Berisha was a known physician who went into politics, Mejdani was a known physicist who went into science. Berisha speaks four foreign languages (English, French, Russian, Italian), Mejdani speaks all that plus German. Student of the famous physicist Abdul Salam, Melani is a follower of Albert Einstein. Contrary to Sali Berisha who had been a communist for a long time, Mejdani has never been a member of the Communist Party. That is why the press considers him to be the first non-communist president of Albania. Mejdani became the member of the Socialist Party a year ago, when with the support of the arrested Socialist leader Nano, he at the same time became secretary general of that party. Before that, in 1991, Mejdani had been a member of the presidential council, agency created by the last communist leader of Albania, Ramiz Alia, after demolition of the monument to Enver Hoxha in the attempt to avoid anarchy in the country. However, in distinction from Berisha who has never wished to be separated from his party, as soon as he had been elected president of the state, Mejdani announced his resignation in the Socialist Party pledging himself to be the figure which would represent the union of the nation. "We have lost a part of the party potential, but we have got a president of all the Albanians", Socialist leader Nano commented Mejdani's departure from the party.

After five years, four of which he had spent in jail, Fatos Nano, the liberal 43-year old economist who had undertaken the difficult task of reforming the former Albanian communists, is coming back to the head of the Government. Freed from prison just four months ago when anarchy which had stricken the whole country was in full swing, Fatos Nano took the responsibility to pull the demolished Albania out from despair and anarchy. A pragmatist who likes to say that his "heart is on the left, but that he prefers to look to the right", Nano has promised opening of a new era in Albanian politics, the Era of Coexistence. Time will show to what extent he will be able to carry that out by avoiding a new edition of the "policy of hatred". Among the greatest difficulties which he will have to overcome is re-establishment of order among the heavily armed Albanians, and compensation of money lost in pyramidal systems. Danger exists that the pyramids which have buried Berisha, would do the same to Nano, if he fails to find a pragmatic solution.

Nano's cabinet is a coalition of five parties - the Socialists, the Social Democrats, the Democratic Alliance, the Party for Human Rights (the Greek minority) and the Agrarian Party. Former prime minister Fino will be deputy prime minister. Two most important portfolios - those of foreign and internal ministers - will not be given to the Socialist winners, but to their allies. Paskal Milo, a Social Democrat and historian of international relations, will be the new head of Albanian diplomacy. In an interview given before taking over the portfolio, Milo announced a new period in establishing relations without prejudice between Albania and its neighbours, Greece and Serbia. On the other hand, Neritan Ceka, a Liberal Democrat, the most famous archeologist in the country and the strongest opponent of Berisha's, will be at the head of the ministry of internal affairs. In the meantime, in the effort to initiate policy of coexistence, the very influential and powerful office of the state control and half of parliamentary committees will be left to the opposition.

The opposition press has criticized the new government because on the one hand its composition does not reflect the division between the south and the north (the north is not well represented in the cabinet), nor the religious tricolour landscape of the country (the Catholics are absent), but especially because of the return of the latest communist nomenclature of Albania to power. Nano, who is used to prison chains, does not seem to be too excited because of such criticism.

Now when the transfer of power has been completed, the question which awaits to be answered is whether the Socialists will be capable of administering their victory, or whether they will repeat the same mistakes made by the Democrats. The lesson learnt from the past six months was very bitter. Nano can very easily be caught between the very aggressive opposition, which is not at all eliminated, and the pressure exerted by the people, who cannot be said to be completely deprived of revanchism. The Socialists will have to administer in a situation which is less the expression of support to them, but more that of revolt to Berisha's group. New discontented and impatient opponents will surely appear very soon.

On the other hand, Nano is also facing the challenge of a new constitution which could very easily be adopted by the parliament in which he has two thirds of the votes but which will not so easily be adopted as a document of consensus. It is still not clear whether the Socialists will demand that this project be voted for at a referendum as Berisha had done, or whether they will be content to have it adopted by the parliament. In any case, seven years after the fall of communism, the country needs a new constitution which will be the foundation for re-establishment of institutions which have dissolved like salt in the sea in the past several weeks of the past spring.

It seems that Albania has completed a chapter of leaders and that now it is demanding to open a chapter of institutions.

AIM TIRANA

Remzi LANI