Government > Leaders Stats: compare key data on Albania & Serbia

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STAT	Albania	Serbia	HISTORY
Head of state > Term limit for head of state	5 Ranked 72nd. The same as Serbia	5 Ranked 81st.
President	Bujar Nishani	Tomislav Nikolic
President > Profile	<p>Bujar Nishani was elected president by parliament in June 2012, replacing Bamir Topi when his mandate came to an end.</p> <p>The main opposition Socialist Party boycotted the vote, and Mr Nishani was the only candidate put forward by the ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Sali Berisha&#039;s Democratic Party. </p> <p>Albania had been mired in political crisis for three years since the Socialists accused the Democrats of electoral fraud after the June 2009 legislative polls, and the failure to agree a consensus presidential candidate marked a setback for European Union efforts to ease political tensions. Government and opposition leaders traded accusations of sabotage throughout the process, which went through several rounds. </p> <p>Mr Nishani, 46, was the country&#039;s interior minister at the time of his election. He is a graduate of Albania&#039;s military academy and holds degrees in law and European studies. </p> <p>The president, who serves a five-year term, has an important role as the head of the legal system and commander of the country&#039;s armed forces.</p>	<p>Serb nationalist leader Tomislav Nikolic won the presidential election of 2012 after several previous attempts. He beat the liberal Democratic Party incumbent Boris Tadic in the second round of voting in May, confounding expectations. </p> <p>Mr Nikolic founded the Progressive Party in 2008 in order to bring his nationalist supporters closer to the centre-ground of Serbian politics, as the Radical Party, to which he had previously belonged, was too closely associated with the Milosevic era of war crimes and xenophobia.</p> <p>The Progressive Party embraced plans to join the European Union and distanced itself from the pro-Russian, anti-Nato stance of the Radicals. </p> <p>It campaigned against unemployment, inflation and corruption to become the largest party at parliamentary elections in May 2012, building on this to achieve Mr Nikolic&#039;s win in a run-off against Boris Tadic a few weeks later.</p> <p>Mr Nikolic reiterated his commitment to European integration, but relations with the European Union seemed unlikely to be as smooth as under the pro-Western Mr Tadic. The disputed status of Kosovo was seen as the most likely sticking-point, but a landmark agreement on normalising ties between Serbia and its former province signed in April 2013 removed one of the major obstacles standing in the way of Serbia&#039;s progress towards EU membership.</p> <p>A week after formal EU accession talks began in January 2014, Mr Nikolic dissolved parliament and called a snap parliamentary election on 16 March, after the Progressive Party said it needed a new mandate to push through the tough economic reforms required by the EU as a condition of membership.</p> <p>Born in 1952, Mr Nikolic trained as a building engineer before going into politics as a Radical. He rose to be deputy prime minister of Serbia and Yugoslavia under the nationalist rule of Slobodan Milosevic, and later served as Radical leader Vojislav Seselj&#039;s stand-in while the latter faced war-crimes charges in the Hague.</p> <p>He ran as Radical presidential candidate in the last Yugoslav election in 2000, and then in the Serbian presidential elections of 2003, 2004 and 2008, coming a close second in the last two Serbian polls. </p> <p>He broke with Mr Seselj after deciding that European integration and economic issues should prevail over nationalist concerns, and went on to form the Progressive Party in 2008, reducing the Radicals to a far-right rump.</p>
President > Summary	Mr Nishani is a former interior minister	Mr Nikolic&#039;s Progressive Party has evolved from its nationalist roots to become more pro-EU
Prime minister	Edi Rama	Ivica Dacic
Prime minister > Profile	<p>Edi Rama became prime minister in September 2013, three months after elections in which his Socialist Party won a landslide victory that brought to an end eight years of conservative rule.</p> <p>Mr Rama&#039;s main campaign pledges were to revive Albania&#039;s ailing economy, combat widespread corruption and crime, and speed up the country&#039;s integration into the European Union.</p><p>The election was closely monitored by the EU, which has twice rejected Albania&#039;s membership application and warned that the poll would be &quot;a crucial test&quot; for its further progress towards integration in the bloc.</p> <p>The outcome of the previous election, which returned the centre-right Democratic Party to power in 2009 by an extremely slender margin, was hotly disputed by the Socialists, who refused to recognise the result and launched a campaign of mass protests and civil disobedience in support of demands for a recount.</p> <p>Mr Rama became the leader of the Socialists in 2005 and spearheaded the party&#039;s challenging of the 2009 election outcome. The dispute over the result appeared at times to be bringing the country to the edge of civil conflict, and became a significant obstacle to Albania&#039;s EU integration.</p> <p>His predecessor as prime minister, Sali Berisha, dominated the country&#039;s political scene for more than 20 years, but by 2013 the electorate appeared to have become tired of the lack of economic progress under Mr Berisha and his perceived failure to tackle organised crime.</p> <p>Edi Rama is a painter-turned-politician who studied at the School of Fine Arts in Paris and during the 1990s made his home in the French capital.</p> <p>On his return to Albania, he became minister of culture in the Socialist government of Fatos Nano in 1998.</p> <p>In 2000, he was elected mayor of Tirana - a position he held until 2011. As mayor, he set out to remake the impoverished capital into a lively modern city, and embarked on a number of controversial projects, one of which was to order the painting of many old buildings in what became known as Edi Rama colours - bright pink, yellow, green and violet.</p> <p>Mr Rama&#039;s critics claimed that he devoted too much attention to cosmetic changes and failed to get to grips with major problems such as the unreliability of basic services in Tirana.</p> <p>As prime minister, he faces many tough challenges. His pledge to improve living standards - in a country where many people depend heavily on financial aid from the large Albanian diaspora in Western Europe and the United States - will be especially difficult to realise.</p> <p>A fluent speaker of English, French and Italian, Mr Rama is described by observers as a dynamic man with a strong personality.</p> <p>The new cabinet that he presented to parliament at the beginning of his tenure consists of mostly youthful political newcomers and includes six women - an unprecedented step in Albania.</p>	<p>Socialist Party leader Ivica Dacic formed a coalition government with the nationalist Progressive Party of President Nikolic in July 2012, ending an unlikely cohabitation with the pro-European-Union Democratic Party.</p> <p>A Kosovo-born protege of the late Slobodan Milosevic, on becoming leader of the Socialist Party Mr Dacic abandoned the more extreme nationalist policies pursued by his predecessor and after the 2012 election declared that he would continue the pro-EU stance of the previous government.</p> <p>However, he faced a difficult task in balancing his commitment to joining the EU with his supporters&#039; reluctance to brook any compromise on the status of Kosovo.</p> <p>A significant step forward regarding the Kosovo issue was made in April 2013, when Mr Dacic and his Kosovo counterpart Hashim Thaci signed an EU-brokered deal on normalising ties between Belgrade and Pristina. Following the Serbian parliament&#039;s approval of this deal, the European Commission gave the green light for the opening of Serbia&#039;s EU membership talks.</p> <p>Following the formal opening of EU accession talks in January 2014, the Progressive Party - which was keen to capitalise on its growing popularity as a result of Serbia&#039;s progress towards EU membership - lobbied for early general elections to be held in March.</p> <p>Opinion polls in January showed Mr Dacic&#039;s Socialist Party - the junior party in the governing coalition - to be trailing well behind the Progressive Party led by Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic.</p> <p>On becoming prime minister, Mr Dacic declared that his government&#039;s main priority would be to stimulate economic recovery. He also vowed to clamp down on crime and corruption, and under his administration several former ministers and tycoons have been arrested as part of the fight against graft and organised crime.</p> <p>In late 2013, his government unveiled a tough package of austerity measures, including plans to cut public sector wages, slash subsidies to loss-making companies and raise taxes.</p> <p>Announcing the measures, Finance Minister Lazar Krstic said Serbia would be bankrupt within two years if it did not take action now.</p>
Prime minister > Summary	Mr Rama was a charismatic mayor of Tirana before becoming prime minister	Mr Dacic&#039;s Socialist Party is the junior partner in Serbia&#039;s coalition government

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