Content area
Full Text
Long Europe's version of North Korea, the small, poor, mountainous, and communist hermit republic of Albania began to come out of its authoritarian shell only in 1991, two years after the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and six years after the death of the country's long-ruling communist strongman, Enver Hoxha. In the two decades since Albania leftcommunism and international isolation behind, it has held no fewer than seven general elections-all but one of them marred by bitter disputes over the results-and endured a generally rocky career as an aspiring-but-turbulent democracy and hopeful candidate for full EU membership. Things hit bottom in 1997 when the collapse of financial pyramid schemes, in which 60 percent of the populace had unwisely invested, set offunrest that forced international intervention under UN auspices and ultimately cost two-thousand lives.
Given Albania's history of thralldom to the bizarre totalitarian personality cult by means of which Hoxha spent forty years "out-Stalining Stalin," not to mention a postcommunist track record of shaky and highly dubious electoral processes, it is both surprising and gratifying to report that the latest trip to the polls appears to have worked out well. On 23 June 2013, a largely peaceful and smoothly conducted election produced a clear turnover of power: The opposition coalition headed by Edi Rama's Socialist Party (SP) won 83 of 140 seats in the unicameral Parliament, while the ruling Democratic Party (DP) quietly conceded and leftoffice. Outgoing premier Sali Berisha, the 68-year-old former heart surgeon who headed the DP and has been the dominant figure bestriding the narrow world of Albanian politics for the last 22 years, accepted blame for the loss and gave up his party post.
In most European countries, a quiet and orderly election would hardly be news. But Albania's tumultuous postcommunist history of contests fraught with grave procedural flaws and disputed outcomes puts it in a class by itself. Campaigns typically feature inflammatory rhetoric and unbridled personal attacks, followed by polling days notorious for mishandled voter lists, the buying of votes, the intimidation of voters, the harassment of candidates, and violent or even lethal incidents at polling places. The electoral law has been changed no fewer than sixteen times since 1990-a level of instability in basic "rules of the game" that...