Europe | Albania

Bad to worse

|TIRANA

IT HAS been hard this week, such is the chaos in Albania, to make out who, if anyone, is actually running the place. As The Economist went to press, Sali Berisha, the buffeted president, was still hanging on--but only just--in Tirana, the capital. By agreeing to hold a foreign-monitored general election by June, he had already signalled the demise of his ruling Democratic Party. And by appointing a member of the (ex-communist) Socialist opposition as prime minister of a caretaker government, he had virtually ensured that power would slip inexorably out of his hands. Constitutionally, he has another five years as president. In reality, he could go at any time.

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