TIRANA, July 6: Rival democratic and socialist parties prepared for the second round of a crucial vote intended to help put Albania on the road to recovery, even as the country's political divide continues to widen following the first round.

The run-off ballots will finalise 34 seats where no one candidate won 50 per cent of the vote in the first round last Sunday. Counting in seven seats was yet to be completed, the central electoral commission said. The socialists, heirs to the former communists, won about 80 of 155 seats in the first round, ousting president Sali Berisha's democratic party after five years in power.

The critical question now is whether the socialists and their left-wing allies can secure the 20 or so seats needed to get a two-thirds majority in parliament. That would enable them to make major changes in post-communist laws and remove a head of state by parliamentary vote. Some 150 observers directed by the organisation for security and cooperation in Europe will watch over proceedings and polling stations will be protected by the 7,000-strong multinational protection force dispatched to Albania in April.Voters in up to seven more districts under investigation for irregularities in the first round could be asked to return to the polls in the coming weeks. Tensions mounted ahead of the second round as a young man was killed when shooting broke out at a monarchist rally this week was buried in a Tirana cemetery. Much of the revolt was aimed at Berisha, who later ceded much of his authority to a socialist-led coalition government pending results of the election.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.