The widow of dictator Enver Hoxha, feared in her own right as a powerful Communist conservative in this backward Balkan country, has been arrested on corruption charges, a top official said.
The arrest of Nexhmije Hoxha, 71, was reported to Albania's crumbling government late Wednesday during a tense seven-hour meeting broadcast on nationwide radio and television.Even though the arrest of Mrs. Hoxha and several other top Communists partially met the demands of the anti-Communist Democratic Party, it was unlikely to save the shaky governing coalition.
Charging that the Socialists, the renamed Communists, were trying to create a "neo-dictatorship," Democratic chairman Sali Berisha announced Wednesday that the Democrats were pulling their seven ministers from the 21-member Cabinet.
Berisha accused Premier Ylli Bufi's Socialists of hindering reform. He said the government has been slow to redistribute land to farmers in Europe's poorest country and failed to combat a rapid increase in crime.
Enver Hoxha ruled Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985, keeping the tiny country in virtually total isolation. Hundreds of thousands of real or imagined political foes were killed, exiled or imprisoned.
Under Hoxha's successor, Ramiz Alia, Albania moved tentatively toward multiparty politics and the Democratic Party was founded in a spasm of anti-Communist protests a year ago.
The Communists handily won multiparty elections March 31, but strikes and protests made it impossible for them to govern without a coalition with their political foes.
Democrats appear confident of winning new elections and want them as early as next month. Elections have been planned for late spring.
Moves against Mrs. Hoxha and other former top officials indicated a further weakening of the old Communist hierarchy that ruled Albania for decades and the Socialists' inability to withstand pressure for change.