The Balkans: Campaigning, Albanian-Style

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communist rhetoric were painfully obvious to voters: severe food and housing shortages, primitive health care, woefully outdated factories, an almost nonexistent service sector and a ramshackle economy that left even basic needs unfulfilled.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.