Sinister shadow looms over a brave new world

Albanian elections: Two parties vie for control, but neither can cast off the country's brutal past

He has been dead for more than 10 years. He has been universally rejected and reviled. And yet Enver Hoxha, Albania's idiosyncratic, repressive and incurably paranoid Stalinist dictator, still casts a sinister shadow over the affairs of his country as it prepares for its third general election since the advent of democracy five years ago.

One overwhelming ideological question has dominated this election campaign: which side represents a true commitment to democratic change and which represents an ominous return to the totalitarian culture of the past?

The ruling Democratic Party, which was born as an anti-Communist front, maintains it is the beacon of modernity, but its leader, Sali Berisha, was a secretary of Hoxha's Party of Labour for 26 years and has shown disturbing signs of authoritarian rule in the four years since he swept to power.

The opposition Socialists, on the other hand, are nothing less than the successor movement to the Party of Labour. They have held on to the old party's assets and maintained much of its structure. In policy, however, they have swung a long way towards the mainstream democratic left and claim that a massive membership drive has renewed them from the bottom up.

The insults have been flying in spectacular fashion. The opposition accuses President Berisha of being "a populist and an autocrat, like Hoxha", while the Democratic Party says it is fighting against a "Red Front"; it describes the Socialists as "the party of Enver Hoxha" and claims the Sigurimi secret police service is still alive, acting as "a cancer in Albanian life".

The issue is a crucial one in a country struggling to put itself back on the map after 50 years of brutal isolationism, and one regarded with uncommon outside interest because of Albania's key strategic position in the Balkans. It was impossible under the old system to get ahead without personal compromise. Nearly everyone now on the threshold of power has been tainted by the past; what is not clear is how far individuals have gone to put their past behind them.

The Socialists have the most obvious image problem. The party's acting leader, Servet Pallumbi, is a former professor of Marxism-Leninism who cuts a poor figure on the international stage and counts among his close colleagues former officials of the Communist regime.

On the other hand, Mr Pallumbi is only a stop-gap figure - the real leader, the far more appealing Fatos Nano, was jailed by President Berisha three years ago - and beneath him are plenty of genuine reformers who are pushing an open, free-market, pro-European programme. It seems inconceivable, given Albania's massive dependence on foreign aid, that a Socialist government would put back the clock; in fact, four years in opposition seems to have made the party at least a little more respectful of political pluralism.

The Democratic Party has made much of the Communist scare during its campaign, but the tactic could prove counter-productive because President Berisha's men are suspect for their own reasons. The Democratic Party has its own old faces, including a Communist-era ambassador to Vietnam and France and a former director of European affairs at the Foreign Ministry. Its election campaign, aimed at floating voters, has in some ways been more socialist than the Socialists - advocating higher state wages and pensions and controls on foreign trade.

More seriously, the ruling party has played politics with the past as an excuse to stifle opponents. Two laws passed last autumn bar former Communist officials and ex-secret police agents from public office until 2002. The legislation seems reasonable in intent, but in practice it enables the government to disqualify anyone from public life without right of reply. Secret police files are reviewed by a seven-man commission appointed by the ruling party, which meets behind closed doors and consults nobody.

Anyone fingered as a former Sigurimi agent is given just one chance at self-defence, which involves going to the High Court. But the High Court, too, is packed with ruling-party nominees, and has yet to do more than rubber-stamp the commission's work.

One of the dozens of politicians barred from running for office, Prec Zogaj, was a prominent anti-Communist campaigner while the regime was in power and served briefly as Culture Minister under President Berisha. He admits signing a secret police document when he was 17, but says he never spied on anyone.

Mr Zogaj believes he is being punished for breaking with the Democratic Party. He took documents in his defence to the High Court, but his appeal was turned down three days after his 15-minute hearing with no explanation.

"Berisha is stirring up the past for political reasons," he said. "This is a very dangerous path ... We must look to the future, not remain hostage to what has gone before."

The tenor of the election campaign fills ordinary Albanians with dread. Typically, they want to see the Democratic Party go, but do not fully trust the Socialists either. Many are hoping for a close result, forcing one party or the other into coalition with the political centre.

But even that outcome is fraught with uncertainties, because Albania has no tradition of coalition politics and shows scant signs of reasonable cross-party dialogue. This is no doubt a symptom of the political culture the country has inherited from the past, a past whose poison is eating away at progress towards true democracy.