Free & Secret

Albania's pro-Communist President, hulking, baby-faced Enver Hoxha (pronounced Hodja) knew that this week's constitutional convention election was in the bag. His 82 candidates were certain to overwhelm the 20 venturesome men who had turned up in opposition. So he permitted free and secret balloting, under a system rude but effective. It functioned admirably.

Moslem women in black, Partisan girl soldiers in British battle dress, brown-uniformed ex-guerrillas wearing red-starred caps, men in fezzes and white turbans and bright sashes around their waists trooped to the polls. Each was given a rubber ball the size of a marble. They were instructed to place their hands, fists closed, in all the little boxes for the Government candidates and then in the one big box for the opposition. Then they raised their hands, palms open, to show that in one of the boxes they had dropped the rubber ball.

When it was all over they danced in the streets, shouting, "Enver Hoxha, Enver Hoxha." The counting would not be completed for several days. But they knew that their future was in the hands of this 37-year-old leader who had learned French as an Albanian diplomat in Belgium, ran a flower shop to mask his activities against King Zog, led the guerrillas against the Italians and Germans.

He would, they knew, turn his back on Italy, which once guided Albania's course. Enver Hoxha faced east, toward Russia.

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