TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/040891/0408003.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.7 KB | 135 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 40

THE BALKANS

Campaigning, Albanian-Style


After decades of isolation, communism has failed here too. Now,
in agony and expectation, the country goes to the polls for
its first free elections.

By JAMES L. GRAFF/TIRANA


    Donkeys laden with firewood shambled about aimlessly
among the crowd in the shabby central square in Mamuras, 19 mi.
north of the Albanian capital of Tirana. The townsfolk's
timeless talk about rain, marriages and hardship had given way
to the excitement of an epochal event: the country's first free
elections. "We want the same things as the rest of Europe --
freedom to go where we like, to work hard and to secure our
future," said Shaban Sula, 37, who works on a nearby collective
farm. But in Mamuras, where Europe seems like a distant
continent, his words betrayed a wistfulness born of generations
of cultural and political isolation.

    If any communist regime was in a position to fend off the
wave of popular revolt that has washed over Europe in the past
two years, the Party of Labor of Albania seemed the best bet.
Since coming to power in 1944, Albania's communists have gone
to great lengths to avoid all compromising entanglements with
the outside world. Enver Hoxha, socialist Albania's founder,
rejected all contact with the West and broke ranks with
communist allies in Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and China when
they deviated from strict orthodoxy.

    But after a tense year of inching back from total
hegemony, the ruling party this week was forced to put its power
to the test against the surging opposition Democratic Party,
established only three months ago, and three smaller independent
parties. While the final tally might not be clear for weeks, the
problems so long glossed over by communist rhetoric were
painfully obvious to voters: severe food and housing shortages,
primitive health care, woefully outdated factories, an almost
nonexistent service sector and a ramshackle economy that left
even basic needs unfulfilled.

    For many of Albania's 3.2 million people, the elections
alone offered insufficient hope of change. Less than a week
before the voting, thousands gathered in the port city of
Durres, drawn by fantastic rumors of waiting ships, including
a ferryboat bound for Boston. Police fired automatic weapons
over the heads of a stone-throwing throng trying to storm the
harbor; 29 people, including 12 police, were reported injured.
Earlier in March some 20,000 Albanians had scrambled aboard any
boat bound for the nearest ports in Italy, and thousands more
are desperate to leave.

    Although the two major parties differ on the pace and
scope of the change they hope to achieve, both say progress can
come only through a market economy buttressed by massive aid
from Europe and the U.S. President Ramiz Alia, head of the
Party of Labor since Hoxha's death in 1985, made tentative moves
toward reform early last year, when he pledged to break the
stranglehold of party management and introduced limited price
reforms. After a series of mass demonstrations in December, the
government allowed the formation of opposition parties.

    The communists carried out their campaign in the old
style, strong on meetings of party cadres but nearly invisible
in the streets. By contrast, the Democrats, who took their
campaign directly to the people even in remote towns, pledged
to introduce privatization through shock therapy, breaking up
the country's agricultural collectives and allowing immediate
land sales. Industrial conglomerates would be cut up into
smaller chunks that could be bought and sold, even by
foreigners. Democratic party co-leader Gramoz Pasko promised
that Albania would be the first Balkan country after Greece to
join the European Community.

    That prospect seems wildly remote. Albania is the poorest
country in Europe, with an average monthly wage of less than
$70. Private-car ownership, recently allowed by the government,
is virtually unknown. Some 65% of the population lives in the
countryside, still shaken by the collectivization of the last
remnants of private livestock in 1981. While Albania's
population grew at an average annual rate of 2.1% in the past
decade, the number of livestock was the same in 1990 as it was
in 1980.

    Meat is rationed to one kilogram per family per week; in
many parts of the countryside, people get only one kilogram a
month. Says Nikolle Llesh Doda, 29, who lives with his wife and
baby son in a two-room house in the tiny village of Vau i
Denhes: "Fifteen years ago, we were all putting more and better
food on our tables."

    At a tractor factory on the outskirts of Tirana, 4,200
workers toil on machines that have been in use since the 1940s,
converting scrap metal into tractor parts. Now mass layoffs
loom. Production and wages have been slashed for lack of raw
materials. "We're terrified that we'll be left with no money,"
says Gezime Sula. Nevertheless, she supports the Democrats, even
though an unbridled marketplace would almost certainly close the
factory gates.

    Albania's agony is likely to deepen as it undergoes the
wrenching retooling of its economy. The tense peace that
prevailed during the campaign could dissipate as a divided
People's Assembly wrestles with intractable problems -- and
heightened expectations. Free elections were Albania's shaky
bridge to the world, assuring the restoration last month of
formal relations with the U.S. after a break of 52 years. But
crossing that bridge will demand great patience from Albanians
and considerable aid from those on the other side.