Fatos Thanas Nano (listenⓘ; born 16 September 1952)[1] is an Albanian socialist politician who served as Prime Minister of Albania in 1991, from 1997 to 1998 and from 2002 to 2005.

He grew up in Hoxha Tahsim Street in East Tirana, attended and graduated from “Sami Frasheri” High School, reserved for the children of the nomenklatura.

In his second year of high school, he founded a rock group of which he was the lead singer; they played the music of the Beatles, strictly forbidden to the general public at the time.

In 1984, he was appointed as a researcher of socio-economic problems and reforms of market economies of Eastern Bloc countries in the Institute of Marxist-Leninist Studies in Tirana, where he worked until 1990.

[17] On 27 July 1993 the Albanian Parliament approved the request of the General Attorney, Alush Dragoshi[18] to take off the legislative immunity for Nano.

[19][20] On 30 July 1993 Nano was arrested in the office of the Prosecutor,[21] and charged with "abuse of duty and the falsification of official documents in connection with Italian aid" following the use of a single vendor which overcharged and delivered foodstuffs which were unfit for consumption.

To do his job from the prison, he used his ex-wife, Rexhina Nano, as intermediate to send directives to the party leadership, sometimes verbally, sometimes in written form.

[22] Since the rejection of the revised Albanian Constitution during the 1994 Referendum,[25] the foreign relations between Albania, the European Union and the United States began to deteriorate due to autocratic manners of President Berisha in the matters of the state, but they also were sceptical about the abilities of the leadership of the Socialist Party to govern the country, in case the Socialist Party were to win the Parliamentary Elections of 1996.

The "Motion for Debate", requested by Nano, also required, to implement the recommendations made by State Department, European Parliament and European Council, for the solution of the political and institutional crisis, as official stance of the Socialist Party, also to propose the Congress to remove Marxist and statist concepts from the party's statute and programme,[29] also to deny Vladimir Lenin and Comintern and rehabilitate Karl Kautsky and Second Internationale.

In 1997, the collapse of Ponzi schemes marked the beginning of an armed popular revolt against President Berisha, who was forced to resign in July 1997.

The goal of Nano and the socialist government was to rebuild the ruined country, strengthen its economy and reconcile its people divided by political beliefs, but this was almost impossible with the destructive opposition led by former President Berisha.

A coup d'état was attempted on 14 September 1998 by the leadership and the radical followers of the Democratic Party of Albania during the funeral of Azem Hajdari with the goal of taking power by force and murdering Nano.

Just days after retaking office in August 2002, Nano came under attack by leading Italian weekly L'Espresso, which accused him of having ties to international organized-crime groups, and having been involved in a cigarette-smuggling ring with Naples-based mobsters.

The court found the article to contain untrue information and speculations with the purpose of harming Nano during his term in office.

The news magazine was ordered to pay Nano €3 million euros, and sentenced the magazine's director Daniela Hamaoi and the authors of the article Claudio Papayani, Dina Nasecti and Giuseppe Roli with 18 months in jail for groundlessly connecting Nano to the crime and mafia in Albania.

[57] Most members of the opposition coalition led by the Socialist Party did not support him, however, and choose to boycott this Presidential Election.

Nano's past unpopularity due to his backroom deals with the equally unpopular former Prime Minister Sali Berisha have tainted his credentials and Edi Rama's popular judicial, administrative and economical reforms ensure that the latter maintains his position as prime minister and leader of the Socialist Party in Albania.