The current Republic of Albania, in the time period of the Cold War, was once synonymous with the moniker of “the North Korea of Europe”. It was known as such for the strictly anti-revisionistic ideology of Enver Hoxha, the former leader of Albania who ruled the nation under virtually closed doors at one point in time, to his death in 1985. As other communist states across Eastern Europe began to protest the communist regimes that had ruled their respective nations beginning in 1989, Albania found itself last to fully transition its state out of communism, only doing so on March 22nd, 1992, when the Democratic Party of Albania, headed by president Sali Berisha, won the general election over the rebranded Socialist Party of Albania.

Although Berisha’s party handily won the elections of 1992, like with many other post-communist states across Eastern Europe, Albania found itself struggling to adapt to its new system of capitalism implemented in the country. This was due to the radical economic policy of “shock therapy” of many liberalizing economic programs ubiquitous to much of post-communist Eastern Europe that many in the country were unfamiliar with, as well as underlying political and geopolitical tension between both parties and neighboring states in Albania, to the point where the interim prime minister of Albania in 1991, Fatos Nano, was arrested on charges of embezzlement and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. In the midst of all of this, Ponzi schemes have become commonplace for virtually all fundamental financial systems in the country to the point of government officials endorsing said schemes, the largest of these being “Sudja”, “Populli”, and “Xhaferri”. These schemes, inevitably, were unable to be paid by leaders of these institutions, and collapsed in on themselves by the beginning of 1997 in Albania, leaving an already destitute population of Albanians even more poorer and upset than ever before.

Delegates in this committee will step up as political, military and social leaders all throughout Albania with the task of navigating their way through the crisis Albania finds itself in, in the beginning of 1997. Filled with people with nothing to lose ready to do whatever it takes to get back what they lost, systems of governance on its last legs of stability all throughout the country, and neighboring states ready to feast on whatever parts of the nation they are able to control first, the Republic of Albania’s fate rests on its ability for its leaders to control itself through chaos nationwide, potentially ushering in an era of success, prosperity and resilience unlike any other for the long-suffering nation, or another post-communist state doomed to a perpetual cycle of misery with no clear end in sight.