Albanian Leader Concedes Election Defeat

Amid signs of a landslide victory for Albania’s Socialists in parliamentary elections, President Sali Berisha conceded defeat to his bitter rivals Monday and hinted that he would step down.

A somber Berisha went on national television, his first appearance since Sunday’s crucial vote, and declared that his Democratic Party would become part of the “loyal opposition.”

“The vote and the verdict of the people will be respected,” he said, adding that he would keep earlier commitments--which included a pledge to resign if his party lost.

Gunfire rang out after Berisha’s statement. But otherwise, Tirana was unusually quiet Monday, belying--so far--predictions that armed supporters of Berisha and the Socialist Party would react violently to election results. The vote was called in March as an attempt to end the anarchy triggered by the collapse of get-rich-quick pyramid schemes and fueled by outrage at the Berisha government.

With only partial returns counted, sources at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, charged with monitoring the election, confirmed a trend giving the Socialists a sizable victory. One official said the margin appeared “overwhelming.”

Still, complete official results won’t be available for days. And Albanian election officials complained that armed gangs were holding up ballot boxes in several polling stations in the districts of Fier and Lushnje, south of Tirana.

Socialist Party leader Fatos Nano, who was imprisoned by Berisha three years ago following a suspect trial and released just three months ago, called on Berisha to step down immediately. Nano claimed his leftist coalition had won 73 of 115 contested parliamentary seats. About 20 of the remaining 42 seats will be decided in a runoff this Sunday, he said.

“We will rebuild Albania without Berisha as a political factor,” Nano said.

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Berisha, however, was careful in his brief televised statement not to say outright that he was resigning. Diplomats cautioned that he was leaving room to maneuver. Legally he does not have to step down, and he could wait at least until a new parliament is seated, which may take weeks.

“Because Berisha is a wily politician who has proved himself capable of ruthlessness, you do not know how he will react,” said a senior Western official.

Whether Berisha resigns, the resounding defeat, if confirmed, marks the effective end of the conservative president’s increasingly autocratic rule.

Once championed by the United States and much of Europe as the man who would guide Albania from nearly five decades of paranoid communism to democracy, Berisha had become temperamental and unbending, according to diplomats. Human rights organizations faulted his politicization of both police and the judiciary and his clampdown on opposition media.

Washington until recently had been willing to overlook these excesses because of Berisha’s role in allowing Albania to serve as a base for U.S. operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina. But fraudulent elections last year and the increasing corrosion of the pyramid schemes signaled a shift in U.S. tolerance.

What follows Berisha, however, remains in doubt. Nano offered a government of reconciliation that would immediately begin to build the democratic institutions. But Europe’s poorest country is economically devastated and awash in guns. Talent within the Socialist Party--successors to Albania’s Communists--does not run deep.

“We are not changing an era today,” Albanian political commentator Remzi Lani said. “The Socialists were also part of Albania’s political class and share responsibility [for the crisis]. They are the same people, but as the same people they have to do something different.”

Western capitals seeking stability in southern Europe were eager to hold and certify the elections despite sporadic violence and irregularities.

As expected, the OSCE on Monday pronounced the elections “adequate and acceptable.” OSCE officials, as well as Western diplomats, urged all party leaders to accept the results and calm any disgruntled supporters.