Sali Berisha, Albanian cardiologist and politician, 2nd President of Albania
Sali Ram Berisha (Albanian pronunciation: [saˈli bɛˈɾiʃa]; born 15 October 1944) is an Albanian conservative politician and former cardiologist who served as the second President of Albania from 1992 to 1997 and Prime Minister from 2005 to 2013. He was also chairman of the Democratic Party of Albania twice, from 1991 to 1992 and then again from 1997 to 2013.
A former secretary of the committee of the communist Party of Labor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tirana, he abandoned his career as a cardiologist and university professor to become the chairman of the Democratic Party in the 1990s. From 1992, after the fall of communism, he served as the first non-Communist President of Albania until his government collapsed in 1997 in the wake of the collapse of notorious pyramid schemes. From 1997 to 2005, Albania was governed by the Socialist Party (PS) for two mandates, while he stayed in opposition.
In 2005, the Democratic Party won the general elections, and he became the Prime Minister after his coalition formed the new government. In 2009, he was re-elected Prime Minister, after the Democrats obtained a narrow win in the general elections but were forced into a coalition with the Socialist Movement for Integration (LSI) through not winning enough seats on its own for the first time since the start of multi-party democracy in 1991. In the 2013 election, his government was unseated in an won coalition led by the Socialist Party and the LSI. After the loss he resigned as the Chairman of the Democratic Party but he continues to be a Member of Parliament as of 2021.
On 19 May 2021, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the public designation of Berisha as Non-grata due to involvement in significant corruption. Berisha announced that he will open a lawsuit, where he will sue the US Secretary of State for defamation, citing the lack of any factual proof to back up the claims. On 9 September 2021 Berisha was expelled by party chairman Lulzim Basha from the Democratic Party's Parliamentary Group due to legal issues with the US Department of State. This decision led to Berisha starting a nation-wide movement to remove Basha as leader of the Democratic Party, causing a major rift in the party's internal structures, between Berisha's and Basha's supporters.
A deeply controversial figure in Albanian politics, Berisha's supporters hail him as a historical figure who overthrew the country's dictatorial regime, whereas his opponents accuse him of having used an authoritarian style of leadership, particularly during the 1990s, culminating with the Albanian civil war in 1997.