PRESIDENT Sali Berisha (52), who was re-elected yesterday to a second five year term by parliament, is a charismatic leader largely responsible for toppling the harsh Communist regime that ruled Albania for 45 years.
The former cardiologist, whose rule has been severely tested by six weeks of rioting over the collapse of dubious investment schemes, was born into a poor Muslim peasant family in the mountain village of Tropoje in the north of the country.
In 1970, at the age of 26, Mr Berisha joined the Communist leaning Albanian Workers' Party. He remained a party member while rising to prominence as a physician in Tirana, where top members of the government sought his advice.
Allowed the rare privilege of travelling on assignment for the World Health Organisation, he brought back books and video cassettes banned in Albania. In 1989, he was one of the first Albanians to challenge the regime of President Ramiz Alia, who succeeded the Communist dictator, Enver Hoxha, when Hoxha died in 1985. When Mr Alia invited several prominent intellectuals to speak to him, Mr Berisha was the only one to openly call for an end to the Communist Party's monopoly.
A year later, when a student revolt shook the regime, Mr Berisha joined in, giving electrifying speeches at demonstrations and earning a reputation for courage. Within weeks, the man who is fluent in five languages had become a symbol of resistance to the decaying rule of a bankrupt regime.
After forcing the communists to legalise opposition parties in late 1990, Mr Berisha founded the Democratic Party, which lost elections in March 1991 to the Communists, largely because of progovernment sentiment in the countryside. But continued instability in the cities, including riots, looting and attempts at mass emigration, forced the government to call new elections II months later.
Mr Berisha's tireless campaigning won his party 65 per cent of the vote and ousted the last Communist regime in Europe. He was promptly elected President by the new parliament and immediately reversed Albania's foreign policy, going as far as to solicit membership of NATO and re-establishing relations with the West, particularly the US.
On the economic front, Mr Berisha set the country on the path of a market economy, believing that it was the only way out of the communist era slump. Despite his efforts, Albania today is still ranked among the poorest countries in Europe.
Mr Berisha soon came under accusations of heavy handedness. He had Iatos Nano, the leader of the Socialist Party, jailed for 12 years on corruption charges that were widely seen as trumped up.
A strident campaign to impose a new constitution giving him increased powers irked many Albanians, who defeated the proposal in a referendum on the issue in late 1994. He also antagonised the Greek ethnic minority in the southern coast by expelling the Greek Orthodox Patriarch sent by Athens to lead Orthodox Albanians.
More recently, Mr Berisha's government has been accused of being behind the get rich quick pyramid schemes that collapsed, leaving penniless hundreds of thousands of Albanians who had invested their life savings. Although Mr Berisha has admitted he should have done more to warn of the dangers of such schemes, he denies his government was involved in any way.