An activist was killed and a politician wounded in a shootout during a closely- contested election in Albania yesterday that is being watched by Western allies worried about democracy in the Nato country.

The country has never held an election deemed fully free, fair

The opposition left scents victory, which would deny Prime Minister Sali Berisha an unprecedented third successive four-year term since the fall of Albania’s communist rule in 1991.

But the threat of a disputed result is rising, after a political row left the top electoral body, the Central Election Commission, short-staffed and unable to certify the result.

The shooting in the northwestern Lac region raised fears of confrontation in the Adriatic nation, which is deeply polarised between Berisha’s Democrats and the Socialists of former Tirana Mayor Edi Rama and has seen election violence before.

Since 1991, Albania has never held an election deemed fully free and fair, and failure again would further set back its ambitions to join the Europ-ean Union.

In Lac, TV pictures showed bullet casings scattered across the street and the smashed rear window of a car. An opposition activist was killed and an election candidate of the ruling Democrats was wounded. Police said four guns were fired.

Berisha, a fiery former cardio-logist, condemned the violence. “I voted No. 44 (Democratic Party), I touched fate, a feeling of pleasure engulfed me, a feeling I have not felt before,” he said after voting in the capital, Tirana.

Opinion polls are unreliable, but point to a narrow victory for the Socialists of 48-year-old Rama. He has been buoyed by an alliance with a small leftist party previously in coalition with Berisha. Rama lost the last election in 2009, called protesters into the streets and four were shot dead by security forces.

Berisha has dominated Albanian political life since the collapse of its Stalinist rule triggered a breakneck and sometimes violent transition to capitalism. At 68, a defeat could spell the end of his career. Rama said the Lac shootout was an “effort to frighten people, to scare citizens away from the ballot boxes”.

“I appeal for people to vote, because a decision that takes just a few minutes will decide not just the next four years but the fate of a generation,” he said after voting.