he president holds all of the executive power. The president appoints its Prime Minister and approves the cabinet, which is nominated by the Prime Minister. The President however, is not elected by the people but elected by the People’s Assembly. The Head of the Government is the Prime Minister Fatos Nano (Socialist Party of Albania) appointed by the president serving the same time as the current president such as our vice-president would.The Albanian Legislature consists of the People’s Assembly (Kuvendi Popullor). The People’s Assembly consists of 155 seats, 115 of who are chosen by single member district plurality in two-stage balloting. The remaining 40 members are selected by simple proportional representation from party lists on the basis of first-round strength, assuming a minimum vote share of 3 percent (National Threshold). Senior members of the former Communist Party, or members of parliament before May 1991, are not permitted to stand in national or local elections until 2002. ElectionThe results of the last Assembly election show that the Socialist Party of Albania received 101 out of the 166 seats, which is a strong majority. The government of Albania also forms opposition coalitions. There is no coalition formed with the major party but there are two small coalitions formed to stop the Socialists. This is how the voting turned out, with the parties of each coalition in parenthesis. Union for Democracy coalition, 31(Democratic Party of Albania, 28; Movement of Legality Party, 2; Party of National Unity, 1); United Albanian Right coalition, 4(National Front Party, 3; Albanian Republican Party, 1). The other parties that received votes are not part of a coalition but usually side with the Socialists. Social Democratic Party of Albania, 9; Human Rights Union Party, 4; Democratic Alliance of Albania, 2; and the Albanian Agrarian Party, 1.Political PartiesThe Socialist Party is generally a reformis...
