Albania Cabinet Ministers To Quit Weeks Of Unrest Force Shake-Up; Opposition Will Ok New Leaders
Bowing to weeks of anti-government protests, President Sali Berisha said Saturday that his Cabinet ministers will resign to be replaced by leaders acceptable to the opposition.
Berisha’s brief announcement on state TV follows unrest that began last month with the collapse of high-risk investment schemes and escalated Friday into riots between police and demonstrators in Vlora that killed at least four people.
The president, speaking from Tirana, the capital, said the new government would still be made up of members of his Democratic Party but that a “round table” of opposition Socialists and other parties would approve new ministers.
It was unclear, however, whether the opposition would sanction any government made up purely of Democratic Party members. Relations have been traditionally hostile between the Socialists - the renamed Communists - and the anti-communist Democrats.
Berisha’s move followed an emergency meeting of the government and new violence in Tirana, where about 6,000 people clashed with police. At least two police officers were beaten after demonstrators stormed a police station. The interior ministry said seven people were injured. Hundreds of police guarded the downtown American Embassy.
In Vlora, some 7,000 people - some firing submachine guns in the air - gathered Saturday to mourn comrades reportedly killed by plain-clothes police trying to end a student hunger strike.
The hunger strikers demand that the ruling Democrats step down to take responsibility for the pyramid schemes, in which nearly every Albanian lost money. Albanians blame the government for not warning them about the risks of the funds.
On Friday, two demonstrators were shot to death and one, a 17-year-old, was stabbed. Crowds in Vlora attacked a van carrying reputed police agents, dragging three men out and beating one to death, according to a Western photographer.
Mobs also attacked Vlora’s two-story secret police headquarters, leaving it a smoking ruin, with its furniture and files destroyed.
The president, who made no mention of plans that he would resign, is up for parliamentary re-election on Monday - a vote that is a foregone conclusion, as his party holds 122 of the 140 seats in the Legislature.