Politician who helped steer Albania’s chaotic transition in the early 1990s from communist rule to fledgling market economy
Gabriel Partos-The Guardian
Whether he was in government or in jail, Fatos Nano was one of the two figures, along with his arch-rival, Sali Berisha, who dominated Albania’s political scene in the turbulent 15 years that began with the disintegration of Communist party rule in 1990.
It was characteristic of the political turmoil of this period that, although he was appointed prime minister on four separate occasions, Nano served for only a total of four years in that post.
Nano, who has died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease aged 73, owed his political influence to his unchallenged position as the leader of the Socialist party of Albania (SPA) until 2005.
As prime minister in 1991, Nano was instrumental in steering – when that was possible – Albania’s chaotic, but largely peaceful, transition from a hardline Stalinist regime with a collapsed command economy to a pluralist society and a fledgling market economy.
The initial political beneficiary of that transformation was the opposition, led by Berisha’s Democratic Party of Albania (DPA), which won a landslide victory in the first genuinely free elections in March 1992.
Berisha was elected president by the new parliament. Nano, who in 1991 had already started to turn the communist-era Party of Labour of Albania (PLA) into the social democratic SPA, soon found himself in prison, following his conviction on charges of corruption.
Nano’s second opportunity to change the course of Albanian politics for the better came in March 1997, when the nationwide collapse of fraudulent pyramid investment schemes led to an uprising against Berisha’s increasingly authoritarian rule. This time the unrest turned much more violent than in 1991-92 as rebel groups and criminal gangs seized hundreds of thousands of weapons from army stores.
In the snap elections of June 1997, the Socialists inflicted a crushing defeat on the Democrats, leading to Berisha’s resignation. Nano returned as prime minister and shifted the balance of power away from Berisha’s de facto presidential rule to a parliamentary system of government.
During eight years of SPA rule that began in 1997, the economy was gradually stabilised, political life became calmer and social conflicts eased. However, the electorate became increasingly disenchanted with the self-serving rule, arrogance and unchecked corruption of the SPA governments. This resulted in the Democrats’ unexpected victory in the elections of July 2005, making it possible for Berisha to return to power from political oblivion.
Nano’s last major contribution was to enable the smooth transfer of power to the DPA, and to resign from the SPA’s leadership. His successor, Edi Rama – the current prime minister – was to build the SPA into a formidable election-winning machine.
Nano was born in Tirana, the Albanian capital. His father, Thanos, would later serve as the head of the state broadcaster, Albanian Radio and Television; his mother, Maria (nee Shuteriqi) was a government official. Fatos was educated at the elite Sami Frasheri high school, and graduated in political economy from the University of Tirana in 1974.
After working as an economist at the Elbasan steel works, Nano joined the Institute of Marxist-Leninist Studies, the PLA’s ideological thinktank. He became a protege of the director, Nexhmije Hoxha, the widow of the communist dictator, Enver Hoxha, who had ruled Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. Hoxha’s increasingly isolationist policies had led to Albania’s pauperisation in the 1980s. Economic hardship and the success of pro-democracy movements elsewhere in central and eastern Europe triggered student protests in Albania at the end of 1990.
Nano was plucked from obscurity to be appointed the government’s secretary-general in December 1990. Thereafter his rise was meteoric: deputy prime minister by January 1991; and, following the toppling of Hoxha’s giant statue in central Tirana on 20 February, he was appointed prime minister by Hoxha’s successor, President Ramiz Alia.
Nano was only 38 years old at the time of his appointment. His promotion was intended to project the image of a generational change and policy transformation by the regime. The tactics worked and he was appointed prime minister for a second time after the PLA won a landslide victory in the first multi-party elections that March.
However, the PLA had enjoyed an overwhelming advantage in terms of resources and publicity over the fledgling opposition. The unfair elections prompted street protests and a general strike, and these led to Nano’s resignation in June. Within days, the congress of the PLA voted to rebrand the party as the SPA and elected Nano as its chairman.
Following the DPA’s election victory in 1992, Nano was arrested in 1993, and in 1994 was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment for the misappropriation of state funds while prime minister. He denied all the charges, and he became a martyr for the Socialists. He continued to lead the SPA from prison: his then wife, Rexhina, acted as a conduit between him and his three deputies.
During the uprising against Berisha’s rule in 1997 Nano was set free, and he subsequently led the Socialists to their election victory. Unlike Berisha, he was not vengeful, and there was no attempt to use the courts to punish the Democrats’ leaders.
His third appointment as prime minister was cut short after a year by anti-government riots following the assassination of Azem Hajdari, a DPA politician, in 1998. The Democrats blamed the government, but a subsequent trial indicated that Hajdari’s killing had more to do with rivalry between gangs involved in arms smuggling.
Nano escaped briefly from Tirana, and to defuse tensions he handed the premiership first to one young protege, Pandeli Majko, and then to another, Ilir Meta, while remaining in overall control of the government. However, as Meta began to assert himself, Nano returned to the post of prime minister in July 2002 to serve his last stint in that post.
Attachment to power mattered less to Nano than enjoying the material benefits that came with being in government and the patronage it offered. He had a relaxed style: journalists (including me) were on occasion treated to a convivial chat and offered a glass or two of malt whisky.
Nano’s comfortable lifestyle, the government’s complacency and the rift with Meta, who had set up a rival Socialist party, led to the SPA’s defeat in the 2005 elections.
Nano’s resignation from the party leadership ended his political career. An attempt to get elected as head of state by parliament in 2007 failed in the face of opposition not only from Berisha’s Democrats but also many of Rama’s SPA legislators, who feared that Nano might emerge as a potential rival to their new leader.
Thereafter, Nano and his second wife, Xhoana, whom he had married in 2002, led a quiet life, dividing their time between homes in Vienna and Tirana.
He is survived by Xhoana and two children, Sokol and Edlira, from his first marriage, which ended in divorce, and a stepson, Klajdi.
Fatos Thanos Nano, politician, born 16 September 1952; died 31 October 2025
/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/28/fatos-nano-obituary
