Socialist Claims Win In Albania

Opposition Socialist leader Fatos Nano claimed Sunday night that his party won “two-thirds” of Albania’s 155-seat Parliament in an apparent stunning victory over his longtime rival, embattled President Sali Berisha.

Although Berisha and his Democratic Party did not formally concede, the president’s failure to appear on state-run television and his followers’ undisguised depression were widely interpreted as a tacit admission of their defeat in Sunday’s vote.

Basing his victory claims on “official preliminary results from polling stations all over the country,” Nano said Berisha “will have to keep his promises” and resign as president.

“One-party, one-man rule, is definitely over,” said Nano of the elections culminating his drive to oust a two-term president.

Berisha ruled Europe’s poorest country with an iron hand for five years but was forced to call these early elections in March after thousands of Albanians, angered at losing savings in get-rich-quick pyramid investment schemes that his government had backed, took to the streets demanding his resignation.

In the general breakdown of law and order, anti-Berisha mobs broke into government arsenals and Berisha in turn armed his Democratic Party followers. As a result the country is awash with at least 600,000 weapons, ranging from assault rifles and heavy machine guns to rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

At least 1,500 Albanians have died in the mayhem, which has left the country in an armed stalemate, with Berisha’s enemies openly warning of renewed hostilities if the Democrats declare victory in the elections.

Sunday night, faced with silence from Berisha and his Democrats - and with official results not due until Tuesday - observers warned against assuming that the elections would automatically end four months of anarchy and put this Vermont-sized Balkan nation back on the rails.

Two provincial election officials were reported killed Sunday, the bloodiest of numerous incidents ranging from stolen ballots and voter registration manipulation to the appearance of armed gangs at polling stations.

With the south still in open rebellion against Berisha and much of the rest of this country subject to widespread lawlessness in the weeks preceding the vote, the wisdom of holding the election at all had been questioned.