Perhaps I am just filling in the blanks here. Perhaps there really is little comparison between Djukanovic’s Montenegro and Meciar’s Slovakia.

Re: Mesic, there are persistent rumors that he has every intention of remaining active in Croatia’s political life after he steps down from the presidency in a few months. The question, however, is what form that activity would take. Mesic certainly sees himself as not only capable of leading the left bloc to victory, especially now that Sanader’s sudden exit has made the prospect of early elections more likely. It’s less certain that the SDP sees him as the right choice to lead them to victory, but they can surely see the advantage in having the country’s most enduringly popular figure on their side. Much will depend on the outcome of the presidential elections – if the HDZ ekes out another win, Mesic might find himself staying relevant well into the next decade.

Didzis, it’s not a bad thing for a country to have boring leaders…

Doug M.

Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR, 1983; Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Estonian SSR, 1990; Head of State in the newly-independent Estonia until 1992; and finally, President of Estonia, 2001-2006.

As the April 1996 issue of “Playboy” already stated: “The best hot new thing you can be is old, in the sense of being so old that you can be rediscovered – in other words, retro. This explains why the hot new star is John Travolta and the hot new action hero is James Bond and the hot new look is from the Sixties. Retro also explains why the hot new peace dividend (freedom) in eastern Europe is allowing voters in fledgling democracies to elect ex-communists”.

Cheers,

J. J.

However, to your points. Albania entered Nato neither because of Berisha nor because of fulfilling any standards. It was a strategic decision due to the role of Albanians in the region. Paradoxally, the decision to NATO membership was taken only some weeks after the explosion of Gerdec (a major corruption scandal involving the minister of defence and some high level officials).

After the Albanian elections some Nato officials expressed embarrasment and rightly remarked that NATO is not an exclusive club of democratic saints but a military alliance that has to make pragmatic decisions. I personally think that Nato membership might indeed help Albania in accelerating the establishment of democratic standards and is generally a good thing for Albania’s democracy. Democratic standarts were however not the reason why Albania was offered membership.

The counting process was to a small but crucial extent politically manipulated. The counting in the election center of Fier was blocked several days by Berisha’s commisioners without any legal reason to prevent the socialists from taking a crucial mandate. Berisha used those days to blackmail and coerce LSI into coalition with him (the alternate left coalition). Legal requests from the opposition to recount some of the election centers were turned down from the central electoral commision (which Berisha controls). Influencing the counting process to achieve coalition goals is enough political manipulation to me but much worse is refusing to recount votes especially with Berishas history. I mean, the refusal of recounting was a good enough reason for massive protests in Iran. Yes, these manipulation techniques were much finer then what Berisha used to do in the 90-ies. They remain however unacceptable by any democratic standard.

Put shortly.
a)Berisha is simply uncapable to organise fair elections. These elections were fairer because of his weak position and the massive pressure from the opposition.

b)By not fulfilling simple administrative tasks (biometric passes, etc) Berisha managed to let Serbia surpass Albania in the process of european integration and shengen admission. Do not forget that Serbia has had 4 wars, almost a decade of economic blocades in the last 20 years and it still suffers political isolation due to Kosovo.

c)Last but not least, Berisha is politically too weak to push major reforms or to combat curruption. He is so week that he has actually succumbed to it. Even wholehearted attemts for the right reforms cannot be implemented by Berisha for his opponents have an easy play by calling his actions a return to his former methods. He just has a dark history behind him, sorry. All his last term was about, was a personal political rehabilitation (behaving, no more journalists’ kidnapping etc). Personal rehabilitation of Berisha is however hardly what one of the poorest countries in Europe can afford.

But I am curious of what you would have written about Mr Godmanis. Your Central Asian and Balkan characters are much more “interesting” and easier to write about and cathegorize than many leaders in Central Europe and the Baltic States.