THE Albanian opposition yesterday accused the ruling Democratic Party of proclaiming a de facto state of emergency, a day after parliament granted the president special powers to quell violent protests touched off by the collapse of bogus savings schemes.
As security was reinforced yesterday around official buildings in Tirana following a weekend of violent protests, opposition parties issued a joint statement condemning Sunday's vote which gave the Albanian President, Mr Sali Berisha, the right to use the military to clamp down on demonstrators.
The vote late on Sunday came in response to a weekend of unrest across the impoverished country in which angry protesters set buildings ablaze in the south and clashed with riot police in the capital. The violence left 84 police officers injured, including two who are in a coma.
In the same statement, the opposition, led by the former communists of the Socialist Party, again demanded the resignation of the government of the Prime Minister, Mr Alexander Meksi, over the collapse of the get rich quick pyramid savings scheme.
"We must create the basis of a real collaboration of political forces," the statement said. "Albania is going through total crisis, political and social, due to the failure of the government."
But Mr Berisha's Democratic Party hit back later, calling for a huge "anti communist" demonstration today in front of the Socialist Party's headquarters in Tirana.
"We must demonstrate against the red violence," the Foreign Minister, Mr Tritan Shehu, said at a party meeting.
The opposition accuses the government of being heavily implicated in the failed pyramid schemes. But the government which has promised to start bailing out luckless investors next week, has accused the former communists in the opposition of harnessing the anti government feeling to stoke up unrest.
An estimated one in three Albanians have sunk a total of $1 billion into the shaky investment savings schemes, which were widespread in Albania until parliament outlawed them on Thursday.
The companies offered interest rates of between 35 and 100 per cent a month to attract savers but relied on fresh armies of savers to stay afloat. When the new supplies ran out, the firms collapsed.
The opposition accuses the government of having encouraged such pyramid savings - run by private firms that prey on naive consumers - to divert attention from the real social and economic problems in one of Europe's poorest countries.
The toll from the violence rose following a mutiny by inmates at a prison wanting to express their solidarity with the protesters. Two inmates at the Barwhor prison in the western town of Karaja died of gunshot wounds after clashes with police. Another five people were seriously injured, including three inmates and two guards, a prison official said.