Vote Mixed in Albania; Leaders Slip : Eastern Europe: But the ruling Communists appear to be winning and likely to retain power. The outcome for the president is unclear. Turnout is 95%.

TIRANA, Albania —  Communist President Ramiz Alia was heading for a sound defeat today in Albania’s first free election, even as his ruling party appeared on its way to victory.

Unofficial returns from Sunday’s election also showed Foreign Minister Muhamet Kapliani losing badly and Prime Minister Fatos Nano running neck-and-neck with a Tirana engineer from the opposition Democratic Party.

But the Communists, known as the Albanian Party of Labor, were running about 2-to-1 ahead of the Democrats in preliminary returns nationally. Early today, the opposition party’s leader, Sali Berisha, conceded that the Communists would win the election.

“We are losing in the countryside. . . . I don’t think we will have a parliamentary majority,” he said.

The effect of Alia’s apparent defeat on his presidency was not immediately clear. A new draft constitution prepared by the Communists for the next Parliament says the president does not have to be a deputy.

However, the defeat of Alia and other key leaders could lead to a disastrous situation, with experienced Communist political and government figures being ousted while their embattled party is left in power.

With most of the votes counted in the capital of Tirana, an opposition stronghold where Alia’s parliamentary district is located, the president was getting only about half as many votes as his Democratic opponent.

But preliminary returns from rural areas showed that support for the Communists remains strong. The Hungarian head of Gallup’s Eastern Europe organization, Robert Manchin, said analysis of the returns received early today indicated that the Democrats are unlikely to win more than 70 of the 250 parliamentary seats being contested.

If the Communists retain control, it could thwart hopes for foreign aid from some Western nations, which have made such aid contingent on removal of the Communist regime. And some opposition spokesmen predicted that many Albanians will flee their nation if the Democrats are defeated.

At least 95% of Albania’s 1.9 million eligible voters cast ballots, many walking miles through muddy, mountainous byways and braving occasional rains.

Even more stunning than the turnout in this poorest and most backward corner of Europe was the general impression of foreign observers that the election was mostly free and fair.

“It’s not going to be a perfect election, as it’s been so many years since they had anything that amounted to an election,” said Steven Norris, head of the British parliamentary delegation monitoring the vote. “But unless the election (outcome) is very close, the violations we’ve seen so far don’t amount to much.”

John Buechner, head of the Washington-based National Republican Institute for International Affairs, also described Albanians’ introduction to political pluralism as “collegial.”

In the most remote towns and villages, a shroud of fear that bound Albania for decades gave way to lively debates on the merits of democracy against the status quo.

The Democratic Party had predicted a sweeping victory against the Albanian Party of Labor, which has ruled this desolate Adriatic enclave since its liberation from fascism in 1944.

“This day is the greatest day in Albania’s history,” said Gramoz Pashko, a prominent economist who had been considered likely to become prime minister if the Democrats won. “It’s the end of dictatorship, the end of communism.”

But after the first rural returns, despondent Democratic leaders conceded they were unlikely to take power.

Final results were not expected until late today or Tuesday. Runoff balloting will be held next Sunday for any parliamentary seats for which no single candidate wins a majority. But as third-party candidates were virtually ignored by the voters, few seats are expected to be decided by runoffs.

Albania’s largest cities, especially Tirana and other bastions of the working class, had been expected to favor the opposition Democratic Party, which came into being only three months ago after student strikes and deadly riots.

Buoyant throngs of voters eager to emerge from Albania’s self-imposed isolation flashed V-for-victory signs as they stood in line to vote in the port city of Durres, showing their allegiance to the Democrats, who have promised radical change and reconciliation with the West.

Some pre-election inspectors, such as a U.S. congressional delegation that visited last week, criticized Alia and his party for monopolizing the media and transport, preventing opposition parties from reaching those in Albania’s most distant corners.

About 150 parliamentary observers from Europe, the United States and the Soviet Union converged on a wholly unprepared Tirana last week, fanning out across this nation of 3.3 million to monitor the vote.

With more than 5,000 polling places scattered throughout the mountainous and often inaccessible terrain, the observers admitted that their view on the balloting was limited but claimed that what they saw was a surprise.

“Everything we saw was pretty much clockwork,” concluded George Galloway, a Scottish observer who also monitored Romania’s election last spring. “Certainly compared to Romania, there was nothing like that tension and hatred on the streets here.”

Galloway noted, however, that the ruling party had moved to bolster Alia’s chances in his district in a pro-opposition area of Tirana by bringing in hundreds of soldiers to vote there as soon as the polls opened at 6 a.m.

Even soldiers, who are considered to be the staunchest defenders of the powers that be, made clear in roadside exit polls that they were far from being of one mind.

“I voted for the Democratic Party. I’m young, and I want to live better,” said Lirim Cela, a 20-year-old soldier negotiating the ruts and mud pools of what passes for a road in the village of Lunder, not far from Tirana. His companion on patrol, Gezim Balla, said he voted for the Party of Labor.