Alia and his political colleagues did not respond to demands by
reformers for a multiparty system until the pressure became too great to
resist. After the government was finally forced to introduce political
pluralism and a multiparty system, several opposition parties were
created. The first was the Albanian Democratic Party (ADP), formed on
December 12, 1990. One of the founders of the party was the
thirty-five-year-old Gramoz Pashko, a physician and a former APL member
and son of a former government official. The party's platform called for
the protection of human rights, a free-market economy, and good
relations with neighboring countries. At the end of 1990, the ADP
started organizing rallies in various cities intended to help people
overcome their fear of expressing political views after decades of
authoritarian control. Thousands of people attended the rallies. The ADP
supported the rights of the large Albanian population in Kosovo, a
province in the Serbian Republic of Yugoslavia, and advocated a
reduction of the length of military service.
By early February 1991, the ADP had an estimated membership of 50,000
and was recognized as an important political force both at home and
abroad. The ADP was led by a commission of six men, the most prominent
of whom were Sali Berisha, a cardiologist, and Pashko. Berisha, a strong
nationalist, vigorously defended the rights of the Albanian residents of
Kosovo, and Pashko was an outspoken advocate of economic reform. The
party's newspaper, Rilindja Demokratike, was outspoken in its political
commentary. Its first issue, which appeared on January 5, 1991,
criticized the government very aggressively.
The second main opposition party, the Republican Party, headed by
Sabri Godo, was founded in January 1991. The Republican Party, which
soon had branches in all districts of the country, advocated a more
gradual approach to reform than that espoused by the ADP. Several other
opposition parties with reform platforms were formed; they include the
Agrarian Party, the Ecology Party, the National Unity Party, and the
Social Democratic Party.
Albania held its first multiparty elections since the 1920s in 1991.
The elections were for the 250 seats in the unicameral People's
Assembly. The first round was held in February and runoff elections took
place on March 31, and a final round was held in April. Staff members of
the CSCE observed the voting and counting of ballots on election day.
They found that the process was orderly, although some complaints of
irregularities were reported. The turnout was an extremely high 98.9
percent. The APL emerged as the clear victor, winning some two-thirds of
the seats. The margin enabled it to maintain control of the government
and choose a president, Ramiz Alia, who had previously been chairman of
the Presidium of the earlier People's Assembly.
The ADP captured 30 percent of the seats in the People's Assembly, as
opposed to 67.6 percent acquired by the APL. Although the APL bore the
burden of being the party responsible for past repression and the severe
economic woes of Albania, it nonetheless represented stability amidst
chaos to many people. This fact was particularly true in the
countryside, where the conservative peasantry showed little inclination
for substantial changes in their way of life. Another advantage for the
APL was its control of most of the media, particularly the broadcast
media, to which the opposition parties had little access. It was
therefore able to manipulate radio and television to its advantage.
Although many conservative leaders won election to the People's
Assembly, Alia lost his seat. Alia had surprised many people by adopting
a new, apparently pragmatic, approach to politics in the months leading
up to the election. He had faced a serious challenge in mid-February,
when unrest erupted again among students at the Enver Hoxha University
at Tiranë. Approximately 700 students went on a hunger strike in
support of a demand that Hoxha's name should be removed from the
university's official name. The demand was a serious attack on the
country's political heritage and one that Alia refused to countenance.
He resisted student demands and stressed the necessity of preserving law
and order, thereby antagonizing those who had expected him to be more
moderate.
In April 1991, Albania's new multiparty legislature passed
transitional legislation to enable the country to move ahead with key
political and economic reforms. The legislation, the Law on Major
Constitutional Provisions, was in effect an interim constitution, and
the 1976 constitution was invalidated. The words "socialist"
and "people's" were dropped from the official title of
Albania, so that the country's name became Republic of Albania. There
were also fundamental changes to the political order. The Republic of
Albania was declared to be a parliamentary state providing full rights
and freedoms to its citizens and observing separation of powers. The
People's Assembly of at least 140 members elected for a four-year term
is the legislature and is headed by a presidency consisting of a
chairman and two deputies. The People's Assembly elects the president of
Albania by secret ballot and also elects the members of the Supreme
Court. The president is elected for five years and may not serve more
than two consecutive terms or fill any other post concurrently. The
president does, however, exercise the duties of the People's Assembly
when that body is not in session. The Council of Ministers is the top
executive body, and its membership is described in the interim
constitution. The law on Major Constitutional Provisions is to operate
as Albania's basic law until adoption of a new constitution, to be
drafted by a commission appointed by the People's Assembly.
The constitutional changes of April 1991 made it obligatory that Alia
resign from all of his high-level posts in the APL in order to accept
the post of president, and the amendments depoliticized other branches
of government, including the ministries of defense, foreign affairs, and
public order. The People's Assembly also gained regulation of the radio,
television, and other official news media.
Prime Minister Fatos Nano, a moderate communist, did well in the
spring 1991 elections, and he was able to set up a new government, which
he established in February 1991. His postelection cabinet consisted
mostly of new faces and called for radical market reforms in the
economy. In outlining his economic program to the People's Assembly,
Nano presented an extremely bleak picture of the economy. He said that
the economy was in dire straits because of the inefficiencies of the
highly centralized economic system that had existed up to that point,
and be advocated extensive privatization as a remedy. He also announced
government plans to reform and streamline the armed forces.
Nano's twenty-five-member cabinet and his progressive economic and
political program were approved in early May 1991. But the outlook for
his administration was clouded by the fact that a general strike had
almost completely paralyzed the country and its economy. Indeed, the
situation became so dire that Nano was ousted and a "government of
national salvation" was created, in which the communists were
forced to share power with other parties in the executive branch for the
first time since the end of World War II. The new government, led by
Prime Minister Ylli Bufi, was a coalition of the communists, the ADP,
the Republican Party, the Social Democratic party, and the Agrarian
Party. It took office in June 1991.
Just days later, also in June 1991, the Tenth Party Congress of the
APL took place in Tiranë. Delegates voted to change the name of the
party to the Socialist Party of Albania (SPA) and elected a reformist
leadership under Nano. Former Politburo member Xhelil Gjoni gave the
keynote address to the congress. He openly attacked the late dictator,
Hoxha, and even went so far as to criticize Alia. His speech was a
milestone for the Albanian communists and signified the end of the
Stalinist line pursued by the party until that time. The new program
adopted by the party stressed the goal of making a transition to a
modern, democratic socialist party.
Alia also gave a speech at the party congress, in which he, too,
sanctioned a significant reform of the party. But it appeared as though
he were under a political shadow. By July 1991, he had come under severe
attack from various political quarters. Serious and highly damaging
allegations were made by several of Alia's former associates. One
detractor charged that Alia had given orders for police to fire on
unarmed demonstrators in February 1991, and others openly questioned his
claims to have started the process of democratization in Albania. The
campaign against Alia was apparently designed to discredit him and force
him to step down.
In response, Alia made a great effort to portray himself as a real
reformist. In early August 1991, he addressed the nation on television
to talk about the attempted coup in the Soviet Union. He said that
Mikhail S. Gorbachev's ouster only encouraged all kinds of dictators and
he deplored the actions of the selfdeclared Soviet State Committee for
the State of Emergency. The subsequent defeat of the Soviet coup was
described by Alia and others as a victory for the forces of reform.
An earlier sign that the government was making an attempt to break
with the nondemocratic traditions of the past was the announcement in
early July that the notorious Sigurimi, the Albanian secret police, had
been dissolved and replaced by a reformed security organization. The new institution, the National Information
Service (NIS), was to be far more attentive to individual rights than
its predecessor had been. The move to disband the Sigurimi and form the
NIS coincided with a steep rise in crime and a wave of Albanians fleeing
to Italy, an exodus that the NIS was unable to stem. The refugee problem
reached epidemic proportions in August 1991, with 15,000 Albanians
seeking asylum in Italy; most were later returned to Albania.
In many respects, Alia was a political survivor. He had managed to
remain a key political figure throughout several political crises.
Although he had some genuine concerns for stability and continuity, he
was not inflexible. He changed in response to the circumstances and
accommodated the demands of the reformers. Nonetheless, with Albania in
the throes of a grave economic crisis, Alia had to face challenges that
he could not surmount. After the collapse of the coalition government in
December 1991 and the ADP's landslide victory in the spring 1992 general
election, he resigned as president on April 3, 1992. On April 9, the
People's Assembly elected ADP leader Sali Berisha as Albania's new head
of state.
Historically, Albania's foreign policy objectives have not been
far-reaching. Ideology has not been a driving force in determining
Albania's relations with the outside world. Rather, its main concern has
been to preserve its territorial integrity and independence. The
strategy pursued by Enver Hoxha was to rely on alliances with communist
states that could give Albania large amounts of foreign aid and at the
same support his regime. His successor, Alia, modified this strategy by
pursuing a more varied foreign policy, reaching out to a number of
Albania's neighbors.
An international organization of communist parties, founded and
controlled by the Soviet Union in 1947 and dissolved in 1956. The
Cominform published propaganda touting international communist
solidarity but was primarily a tool of Soviet foreign policy. The
Communist Party of Yugoslavia was expelled in June 1948.
Conference on Security and Cooperation in
Europe (CSCE)
Furthers European security through diplomacy, based on respect for
human rights, and a wide variety of policies and commitments of its
more than fifty Atlantic, European, and Asian member countries.
Founded in August 1975, in Helsinki, when thirty-five nations signed
the Final Act, a politically binding declaratory understanding of
the democratic principles governing relations among nations, which
is better known as the Helsinki Accords (q.v.).
Originally a Greek city, Byzantium, it was made the capital of the
Byzantine Empire by Constantine the Great and was soon renamed
Constantinople in his honor. The city was captured by the Turks in
1453 and became the capital of the Ottoman Empire. The Turks called
the city Istanbul, but most of the non-Muslim world knew it as
Constantinople until about 1930.
A term coined by Nikita Khrushchev at the Twentieth Congress of
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956 to describe the rule
of Joseph Stalin, during which the Soviet people were compelled to
deify the dictator. Other communist leaders, particularly Albania's
Enver Hoxha, followed Stalin's example and established a cult of
personality around themselves.
A Leninist doctrine requiring discussion of issues until a
decision is reached by the party. After a decision is made,
discussion concerns only planning and execution. This method of
decision making directed lower bodies unconditionally to implement
the decisions of higher bodies.
The EC comprises three communities: the European Coal and Steel
Community (ECSC), the European Economic Community (EEC, also known
as the Common Market), and the European Atomic Energy Community
(Euratom). Each community is a legally distinct body, but since 1967
they have shared common governing institutions. The EC forms more
than a framework for free trade and economic cooperation: the
signatories to the treaties governing the communities have agreed in
principle to integrate their economies and ultimately to form a
political union. Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the
Netherlands, and the Federal Republic of Germany (then West Germany)
are charter members of the EC. Britain, Denmark, and Ireland joined
on January 1, 1973; Greece became a member on january 1, 1981; and
Portugal and Spain entered on January 1, 1986. In late 1991,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland applied for membership.
Instituted in 1979, the ECU is the unit of account of the EC (q.v.).
The value of the ECU is determined by the value of a basket that
includes the currencies of all EC member states. In establishing the
value of the basket, each member's currency receives a share that
reflects the relative strength and importance of the member's
economy. In 1987 one ECU was equivalent to about one United States
dollar.
A measure of the total value of goods and services produced by the
domestic economy during a given period, usually one year. Obtained
by adding the value contributed by each sector of the economy in the
form of profits, compensation to employees, and depreciation
(consumption of capital). Only domestic production is included, not
income arising from investments and possessions owned abroad, hence
the use of the word domestic to distinguish GDP from gross
national product (GNP--q.v.). Real GDP is the value of GDP
when inflation has been taken into account.
Public discussion of issues; accessibility of information so that
the public can become familiar with it and discuss it. The policy in
the Soviet Union in the mid- to late 1980's of using the media to
make information available on some controversial issues, in order to
provoke public discussion, challenge government and party
bureaucrats, and mobilize greater support for the policy of perestroika
(q.v.).
GDP (q.v.) plus the net income or loss stemming from
transactions with foreign countries. GNP is the broadest measurement
of the output of goods and services by an economy. It can be
calculated at market prices, which include indirect taxes and
subsidies. Because indirect taxes and subsidies are only transfer
payments, GNP is often calculated at a factor cost, removing
indirect taxes and subsidies.
Signed in August by all the countries of Europe (except Albania)
plus Canada and the United States at the conclusion of the first
meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the
Helsinki Accords endorsed general principles of international
behavior and measures to enhance security and addressed selected
economic, environmental, and humanitarian issues. In essence, the
Helsinki Accords confirmed existing, post-World War II national
boundaries and obligated signatories to respect basic principles of
human rights. Helsinki Watch groups were formed in 1976 to monitor
compliance. The term Helsinki Accords is the short form for the
Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
and is also known as the Final Act.
Established along with the World Bank (q.v.) in 1945, the
IMF has regulatory surveillance, and financial functions that apply
to its more than 150 member countries and is responsible for
stabilizing international exchange rates and payments. Its main
function is to provide loans to its members (including
industrialized and developing countries) when they experience
balance of payments difficulties. These loans frequently have
conditions that require substantial internal economic adjustments by
recipients, most of which are developing countries. Albania joined
the IMF in October 1991.
Soldiers, usually of non-Turkish origin, who belonged to an elite
infantry corps of the Ottoman army. Formed a self- regulating guild,
administered by a council of elected unit commanders. From the
Turkish yeniçeri; literally, new troops.
A province of the Serbian Republic of Yugoslavia that shares a
border with Albania and has a population that is about 90 percent
Albanian. Serbian nationalists fiercely resist Albanian control of
Kosovo, citing Kosovo's history as the center of a medieval Serbian
Kingdom that ended in a defeat by the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of
Kosovo Polje in 1389. Residents of Kosovo are known as Kosovars.
Albanian national currency unit consisting of 100 qintars. In
early 1991, the official exchange rate was L6.75 to US$1; in
September 1991, it was L25 = US$1; and in January 1992, the exchange
rate was L50 = US$1.
State organizations that owned the major equipment needed by
farmers and obtained the agricultural products from collectivized
farms. First developed in the Soviet Union and adopted by Albania
during the regime of Enver Hoxha.
The ideology of communism, developed by Karl Marx and refined and
adapted to social and economic conditions in Russia by Lenin, which
guided the communist parties of many countries including Albania and
the Soviet Union. Marx talked of the establishment of the
dictatorship of the proletariat after the overthrow of the
bourgeoisie as a transitional socialist phase before the achievement
of communism. Lenin added the idea of a communist party as the
vanguard or leading force in promoting the proletarian revolution
and building communism. Stalin and subsequent East European leaders,
including Enver Hoxha, contributed their own interpretations of the
ideology.
Under the provisions of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT), when one country accords another most-favored- nation status
it agrees to extend to that country the same trade concessions,
e.g., lower tariffs or reduced nontariff barriers, which it grants
to any other recipients having most-favored- nation status. As of
January 1992, Albania had not been a member of GATT and had not
received most-favored-nation status from the United States.
The official measure of the value of goods and services produced
in Albania, and in other countries having a planned economy, during
a given period, usually a year. It approximates the term gross
national product (GNP--q.v.) used by economists in the
United States and in other countries having a market economy. The
measure, developed in the Soviet Union, was based on constant
prices, which do not fully account for inflation, and excluded
depreciation.
Formed in thirteenth and fourteenth centuries when Osman I, a
Muslim prince, and his successors, known in the West as Ottomans,
took over the Byzantine territories of western Anatolia and
southeastern Europe and conquered the eastern Anatolian Turkmen
principalities. The Ottoman Empire disintegrated at the end of World
War I; the center was reorganized as the Republic of Turkey, and the
outlying provinces became separate states.
Mikhail S. Gorbachev's campaign in the Soviet Union in the mid- to
late 1980s to revitalize the economy, party, and society by
adjusting economic, political, and social mechanisms. Announced at
the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in August 1986.
A member of the smaller of the two great divisions of Islam. The
Shia supported the claims of Ali and his line to presumptive right
to the caliphate and leadership of the Muslim community, and on this
issue they divided from the Sunni (q.v.) in the first great
schism within Islam. In 1944, when the communists assumed power in
Albania, about 25 percent of the country's Muslims belonged to an
offshoot of the Shia branch known as Bektashi (q.v.).
The authoritarian practices, including mass terror, and
bureaucratic applications of the principles of Marxism-Leninism (q.v.)
in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and in East European
communist countries.
The palace entrance that provided access to the chief minister of
the Ottoman Empire, who represented the government and the sultan (q.v.).
Term came to mean the Ottoman government.
The supreme ruler of the Ottoman Empire. Officially called the padishah
(Persian for high king or emperor), the sultan was at the apex of
the empire's political, military, judicial, social, and religious
hierarchy.
Sunni (from Sunna, meaning "custom,"
having connotations of orthodoxy in theory and practice)
A member of the larger of the two great divisions within Islam.
The Sunnis supported the traditional (consensual) method of election
to the caliphate and accepted the Umayyad line. On this issue, they
divided from the Shia (q.v.) in the first great schism
within Islam. In 1944, when the communists assumed power in Albania,
about 75 percent of the country's Muslims were Sunnis.
A follower of the political, economic, and social policies
associated with Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslav prime minister from 1943
and later president until his death in 1980, whose nationalistic
policies and practices were independent of and often in opposition
to those of the Soviet Union.
A treaty signed by Russia and the Ottoman Empire on March 3, 1878,
concluding the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. If implemented, would
have greatly reduced Ottoman holdings in Europe and created a large,
independent Bulgarian state under Russian protection. Assigned
Albanian-populated lands to Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria.
Substantially revised at Congress of Berlin (q.v.), after
strong opposition from Great Britain and Austria-Hungary.
Any Eastern Christian church that recognizes the supremacy of the
pope but preserves the Eastern Rite. Members of the Albanian Uniate
Church are concentrated in Sicily and southern Italy, and are
descendants of Orthodox Albanians who fled the Ottoman invasions,
particularly after the death of Skanderbeg in 1468.
Formal name for Warsaw Pact. Political-military alliance founded
by the Soviet Union in 1955 as a counterweight to the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization. Albania, an original member, stopped
participating in Warsaw Pact activities in 1962 and withdrew in
1968. Members in 1991 included Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East
Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union. Before it
was formally dissolved in April 1991, the Warsaw Pact served as the
Soviet Union's primary mechanism for keeping political and military
control over Eastern Europe.
Name used to designate a group of four affiliated international
institutions that provide advice on long-term finance and policy
issues to developing countries: the International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development
Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and
the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). The IBRD,
established in 1945, has the primary purpose of providing loans to
developing countries for productive projects. The IDA, a legally
separate loan fund administered by the staff of the IBRD, was set up
in 1960 to furnish credits to the poorest developing countries on
much easier terms than those of conventional IBRD loans. The IFC,
founded in 1956, supplements the activities of the IBRD through
loans and assistance designed specifically to encourage the growth
of productive private enterprises in less developed countries. The
president and certain senior officers of the IBRD hold the same
positions in the IFC. The MIGA, which began operating in June 1988,
insures private foreign investment in developing countries against
such non-commercial risks as expropriation, curl strife, and
inconvertibility. The four institutions are owned by the governments
of the countries that subscribe their capital. To participate in the
World Bank group, member states must first belong to the IMF (q.v.).
A Turkish revolutionary nationalist reform party, officially known
as the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), whose leaders led a
rebellion against the Ottoman sultan and effectively ruled the
Ottoman Empire from 1908 until shortly before World War I.
we Companion ed Kennels b 248 +searchr Companion ic Szh esearchS Szh f Szh osearch+A Szh ti Kennels lsearchT 248 asearche Kennels % Kennels 2+ Kennels e 0979 + 632 e 632 isearchnsearchng+ Great omsearcha Kennels y+f
o 0979 +searchr
i 0979 l Kennels Trd Greatcompanionkennels r Kennels 22 Kennels chin Szh +
fsearcho 248 + Great r Szh isearchl 632 T Great asearche Kennels % Greatcompanionkennels 2
w 632 i Greatcompanionkennels hsearch+t Szh a Great nsearchng Companion wsearchr
o Greatcompanionkennels t searchO Great I Szh Y