Albania’s election. Berisha beacon

The comeback of a discredited former prime minister

IT HAS never held a free and fair vote, so Albania's July 3rd general election came under close international scrutiny. In the event, there were few complaints of fraud, but intimidation and vote-buying were much in evidence. An official from the Republicans, a right-wing opposition party, was shot dead outside a Tirana polling station. Thousands of names were missing from the voting register compiled early this year. A mission led by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said the election only partly complied with international standards.

Sali Berisha, leader of the centre-right Democratic Party, quickly claimed a majority in the 140-seat parliament. But 72 hours after the polls closed, the electoral commission had issued results from fewer than a third of counting centres. Albanian television gave the Democrats 55 of 100 seats contested under first-past-the-post rules, and their Republican allies at least 20 of 40 seats in a proportional ballot. But after a long period in power, including four years as prime minister, Fatos Nano, the Socialist leader, is turning out to be a poor loser. Party officials plan to contest the results in Tirana and Durres, where the Democrats made the biggest gains. The Democrats said several electoral commission staff had resigned after intimidation from Socialists. The Socialists retorted that Democrats were harassing vote-counters.

The official outcome is likely to give Mr Berisha a slim majority. But the post-election manoeuvring has not improved Albania's chances of completing a European Union stabilisation and association agreement, the first step towards eventual EU membership. Talks were postponed last year because of the Socialists' failure to tackle corruption and organised crime.

Under Mr Nano, the economy has expanded fast, driven in part by remittances from Albanians working in Italy, Greece and Britain. But unemployment is still high despite emigration. In the countryside, subsistence farming is the rule. Companies known as “monopols”, owned by prominent Socialists, have a grip on such necessities as imports of fuel and food. The failure to tackle organised crime has made Albania Europe's main warehouse for heroin, say western diplomats.

Can Mr Berisha do better? His record is not promising. He was a doctor to the late Enver Hoxha, Albania's dictator, and founded the Democratic party when Albania gave up its isolation in 1990. As president, he launched market reforms but lost credibility when he refused to shut a series of pyramid savings schemes in which an estimated 60% of the population had invested. He was kicked out of office when the scam collapsed in 1997 with losses of more than $2 billion, leading to months of anarchy in which 2,000 people died. A year later he was accused of organising violent protests to bring down Mr Nano's government. Eventually Mr Berisha apologised for tolerating the pyramid schemes, and rebuilt his party.

With the help of American consultants, Mr Berisha campaigned on an anti-corruption platform, which appealed to Albanians fed up with being asked to pay bribes and seeing jobs go to less qualified people with Socialist connections. “Corruption is so widespread it undermines society,” says Professor Gezim Karapici, of Tirana University, who ran for parliament for the Democrats as a gesture of protest. Mr Berisha may have persuaded voters he is fit to govern, but he will find it hard to put Albania back on the path to reform.