Portrait of the Albanian Prime Minister Six Months After his Coming to Power
TWO NANOS: DEFEAT OR TRIUMPH?
AIM Tirana, February 21, 1998
When seven years ago the current Prime Minister, 45-year old economist Fatos Nano, came to the helm of the Socialist Party, some of his close friends, as well as numerous students from the Faculty of Economics who had the opportunity to hear his lectures, stated that it would "have been better if Fatos Nano were President of the Democratic Party and Berisha of the Socialist Party". Both Nano as well as the former President Berisha have a communist past. However, although he became a leader of the anti-communist movement, Berisha was always remembered as a fanatic secretary of the former Basic Organization of the Labour Party. On the other hand, Fatos Nano, although employed at the Marxist-Leninist Institute which was run by the wife of the dictator Enver Hoxha, was known as a liberal and a moderate man.
Growing up in a communist family which enjoyed some privileges of the Hoxha's regime, Nano was able to get much better education than most of the Albanians and accept Western and liberal ideas. As an 11-year old boy he was fluent in French. A year later he was able to speak Italian and two years later English. Thanks to Hoxha's inclination to the French culture, the Nano family was able to obtain French books and watch French TV shows. At the Marxist-Leninist Institute where he worked, he was in charge of the European Community studies.
This was not his only experience. He was the Prime Minister twice in 1991: from February to March and from April to May. The Government that he led came after 5o years of dictatorship and isolation from the rest of the world and although Nano announced reforms and the introduction of market economy, his two Cabinets were short-lived. The first Nano Cabinet stepped down because of the large-scale anti-communist campaign. The second time he resigned and thus become the second Albanian politician, after the former communist president Ramiz Alia, to tender his resignation in 500 years long Albanian history. Nano accepted the defeat quietly being aware that he did not have the support of the international community behind him. Still, the Cabinet he led in March 1991 was the first one to establish diplomatic relations with the USA and make it possible for Albania to join the CSCE.
After 1992 parliamentary elections when Sali Berisha's Democratic Party won over 65 percent of the votes cast, Fatos Nano unveiled his programme on the further reform of the Socialist Party (successor of the former Labour Party), both as regards its programme as well as personnel policy. Three months after the Democrats came to power, Nano's party won the local elections while he was convicted several weeks later in July 1993, in a set-up trial to 12 years in prison allegedly for corruption.
Prison was yet another great experience for Nano. He had time to think over and look into the mistakes of the ruling Democratic Party, trying to convince himself every day that he should not punish the man responsible for his fate, the President Sali Berisha. Although behind bars, Nano still pulled the strings of his party. He followed all the developments closely through the press he received from his wife. Thus the Socialist Party had two Nanos: the actual one who continued to lead the party and the mythical hero, the first political prisoner in Berisha's democracy.
After four years, upon his release he was able to keep everything under control and exercise undisputed authority owing to public outrage caused by the collapse of the pyramid savings schemes. It was therefore not surprising that three months after the elections, at which his party won about 65 percent of the votes cast, directly from his prison cell he slipped into the Prime Minister's chair for the third time, but this time as the leader of a broader coalition.
When he assumed power, but also during the electoral campaign, he tried to offer a hand of reconciliation to the opposition and in contrast to Berisha, said that he was willing to extend it even to the President who had arrested him, but as an Albanian citizen and not as President. Nano was strongly against the arrest of the Democratic leader Berisha and called for national reconciliation and an early promulgation of the Constitution with the participation of all political forces. Taking the reins of power in his country in his hands, Nano also "rehabilitated" the Albanian executive power which under Berisha was pushed to the sidelines because of Berisha's authoritarian practices.
The Albanian Prime Minister started pursuing a more open policy vis-a-vis his neighbours and launched his old idea for a "Europeanised Balkans" demanding the opening of the borders or the introduction of a system similar to the Schengen one. He did not shy away from meeting with the Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic at the Balkan Summit in Crete in early November 1997, thus destroying yet another taboo. But, this daring move cost him a great deal as it irritated the Kosovo ethnic Albanians whom he called a "community". As a result he became a rather unpopular leader for them as well as all the Albanians living outside the Republic of Albania. Nevertheless, it seems that this policy was welcomed by both the West and the USA.
Nano did not shirk from offering the Albanians in Albania, as well as all those who voted left at the elections, his ideological platform: "Our heart is on the left side, but our eyes are turned to the right". He was scathingly criticised by Servet Pellumbi, the former Vice-President and a deputy of the Socialist Party, who claimed that Nano was shifting the party to the right and that programme of his coalition had nothing in common with that of the Socialist Party. On this score former Vice-President Pellumbi was right. Fatos Nano introduced a veritable shock therapy, much more severe than the one the Albanians had to face during Berisha's five years in office. VAT was raised from 12.5% to 20%. The Prime Minister adopted an ambitious programme for the privatization of the key economic sectors such as power industry, oil, non-ferrous metal industry, telecommunications, etc. He rigorously followed the IMF prescriptions in an attempt to develop a modern economy persistently advocating "right wing solutions in the economy" as a perpetuation of the modernization of the Left. His idol is Tony Blair, whom he ought to emulate from time to time.
Still, in Albania it is not enough to implement a right-oriented programme and a moderate course towards the neighbours for everything to turn for the better. Nano's economic policy caused a further increase of prices and decrease of the standard of living, with Albania remaining the poorest country in Europe. Out of 700 thousand arms taken from the storerooms during last year's riots, only some 100 thousand were returned, while over 25 murders are reported in the country every week. The GNP is expected to fall by three percent by the end of the year and the budget deficit to reach 17 percent of the GNP and the employment 40 percent. A great responsibility is on President Nano: last year, during electoral campaign, in Vlore, the heart of riots, he promised the voters the return of the money lost in the pyramid savings schemes although he could have won their votes even without that promise.
Bearing in mind all these difficulties as well as the lack of foreign investments and the fact that the plebiscitary vote he had won at parliamentary elections of June 29, 1997, was a vote cast against the former President Berisha rather than a vote cast in his favour, in early February Nano delivered an extremely critical speech at the most recent session of the Ministerial Council. He demanded "visible actions" so as to convince both the public, as well as the West, that he would fight corruption and carefully use the moneys provided by the international institutions. He also said that some changes were possible as far as ministers were concerned and demanded that special attention be devoted to foreign investors.
For the first time after seven months of rule he reminded the Ministers that the tragic past could no longer be used as an excuse. "Henceforth Berisha and his fix can no longer be used as a pretext but as the reason behind this situation", said Nano. In this way he took on himself the overall responsibility for the reconstruction of the country devastated by 50 years of communism as well as Berisha's democracy. From now only he will be the only one to blame, but his will also be the victory.
AIM Tirana
Andi BEJTA