page_title: Socialist Party of Albania
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Socialist Party of Albania / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: TiranaHausDerSozialistischenPartei
context_page_description: The Socialist Party of Albania, is a social-democratic political party in Albania; it gained power following the 2013 parliamentary election. The party seated 66 MPs in the 2009 Albanian parliament. It achieved power in 1997 following a political crisis and governmental realignment. At the 2001 parliamentary election the party secured 73 seats, which enabled it to form a government. At the general election of 3 July 2005, the Socialist Party lost its majority and the Democratic Party of Albania formed the new government, having secured, with its allies, a majority of 81 seats.
  The Socialist Party of Albania is an associate of the Party of European Socialists and a member of the Socialist International. The official party newspaper is Zëri i Popullit, which had been the organ of its predecessor, the Communist Party of Labour of Albania.
context_section_description: The party, formed in November 1941, has been known as the Socialist Party since 1991, when it survived in the wake of the dramatic changes that had taken place in Albania since 1989.  The Communist Party of Labour of Albania (PPSh), the only ruling party since the end of World War II, was the most rigid Stalinist party in Europe under its founder and longtime leader, Enver Hoxha.  However, Hoxha's successor, Ramiz Alia, was forced to introduce limited reforms in the late 1980s. Finally, on 11 December 1990, Alia announced that the PPSh had given up its monopoly of power.
  The PPSh won the Constitutional Assembly elections of March 1991—the first free elections held in the country in almost 80 years.  By this time, however, it was no longer a Marxist–Leninist party.  At an extraordinary congress on 10–13 June 1991, in its efforts to survive in the new system, the PPSh voted to change its name to PS.
  Fatos Nano, a man from the intelligentsia, was elected the new chairman. Nano helped to reform the old communist party and made it a member of the Socialist International. On 1 September 2005 Nano resigned as the chairman of the Socialist Party, after losing the elections. He was succeeded by Edi Rama.
caption: Socialist Party Headquarters in Tirana
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