Conservative PM Berisha to head coalition with leftist partner

Prime Minister Sali BerishaTirana  - Albania has a new coalition government, Prime Minister Sali Berisha and the former opposition leader Ilir Meta said in Tirana Wednesday, more than two months after parliamentary elections.

Berisha's conservative Democratic Party and Meta's social- democratic LSI party struck an agreement to form the majority ahead of the inaugural session of the new parliament on Monday.

Meta, Albania's prime minister when he led the Albanian Socialist Party in 1999-2002, is set to become foreign minister under the coalition agreement. The LSI, which splintered off from the Socialist Party, is also to run the ministries for health and economy.

The Socialist Party, now headed by the Tirana Mayor Edi Rama, on Saturday declared that it was refusing to acknowledge the official results of the June 28 elections.

The Socialists alleged widespread vote-rigging and tampering with the ballots, but have however not yet decided whether to boycott the legislature.

President Bamir Topi is expected to designate Berisha as the next premier shortly after the parliament constitutes itself.

Once an isolated bastion of hardline Communism and today still one of Europe's poorest countries, Albania joined NATO this year. The June poll, criticized by Western organizations, was a crucial gauge of its maturity for closer ties with the European Union.  dpa