Fatos Thanas Nano (listen^ⓘ; 16 September 1952 – 31 October 2025) was an Albanian socialist politician who served as Prime Minister of Albania in 1991, from 1997 to 1998 and from 2002 to 2005. He was the first leader and founder of the Socialist Party of Albania and a member of the Albanian Parliament from 1991 to 1993 and 1997 to 2009. He reformed the anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist ideology of the Labour Party of Albania into social democracy for its successor, the Socialist Party. During his leadership, the Socialist Party, as a result of reforms, joined the Socialist International and Party of European Socialists. Nano was a candidate in the 2007 presidential election but did not win. He again tried in the 2012 presidential election, but he did not even qualify as a candidate, because the leaders of parties in Parliament obstructed their respective MPs to elect him as candidate in the elections.

Fatos Nano was born in Tirana on 16 September 1952. His parents were Thanas Nano, a former director of Albanian Radio Television, and Maria Nano (née Shuteriqi), a government official from the same family as Dhimitër Shuteriqi. He was the only male child among female siblings in the family. 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 the early years of adolescence, Nano was eager to learn foreign languages and used to play the guitar. 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. He graduated in Political Economy from the University of Tirana in 1974. After graduation in 1978, Nano worked in the management of the metallurgical mills of Elbasan until 1981. From 1981 until 1984, Nano served as an economist at Priska's Agricultural Farm in Tirana. 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. When Fatos Nano was working in the Marxist-Leninist Institute, he was under the observation of Nexhmije Hoxha, Enver Hoxha's wife. He was singled out for special favor.

Nano began his political career in December 1990, where he was first appointed as Secretary General of the Council of Ministers. In January 1991, he was promoted to the position of Deputy Prime Minister, still in the government of Adil Çarçani. The fall of the communist regimes in various Central and Eastern European countries forced President Ramiz Alia to gradually remove the old communist nomenklatura from power and government, so in the end of February 1991, Alia appointed Nano as Prime Minister of the transitional government with the purpose of organizing the first post-communist democratic elections in the country being held that year and to prepare the transition of the country towards liberal democracy and a market economy. The Parliamentary Elections were held on 31 March 1991 where the Labour Party of Albania won the majority. Ramiz Alia appointed Nano for the second time as the new Prime Minister. However, his new government did not last longer than the first as one week after a General Strike organized by the independent unions forced him to resign a couple of weeks later. The 10th Congress of the Labor Party was held in June 1991, which took three important decisions; first it changed the name of Labour Party to Socialist Party, then it expelled all the members of the Politburo, and then it elected Nano as the new leader of the Socialist Party on 13 June 1991.

After the Democratic Party of Albania won the parliamentary election of 22 March 1992, the Parliament set up a commission in early 1993 to investigate the activity of Fatos Nano for alleged corruption and abuse with management of humanitarian aid given by the Italian state during the economic crisis that lasted from 1990 until early 1992. This was a sophisticated way to imprison Nano due to his strong opposition to the autocratic signs of President Sali Berisha and due to the inefficiency and inability of the government headed by Aleksander Meksi to accomplish effective economic reforms. Nano was right about this, because the government of the Democratic Party permitted the notorious Ponzi schemes (known as pyramid schemes in Albania) which resulted in the unrest of 1997 where the majority of Albanians lost their savings, instead of effective economical reforms. On 27 July 1993 the Albanian Parliament approved the request of the General Attorney, Alush Dragoshi to take off the legislative immunity for Nano. On 30 July 1993 Nano was arrested in the office of the Prosecutor, 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. On 3 April 1994, Nano was sentenced to twelve years in prison. A petition signed by 700 thousand people was sent to President Berisha to free Nano from prison. Nano was considered a political prisoner by the Socialist Party of Albania, Amnesty International, Human Right Watch (former Helsinki Watch), Inter-Parliamentary Union, and other groups, so he was let to be the chairman of it. 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.^{[unreliable source?]} After imprisonment, Nano decided that the party should be led by three Deputy Chairmen and one Secretary General to continue the party's political battle.

After the rejection of the revised Albanian Constitution during the 1994 Referendum, 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 foreign diplomats also expressed concern toward the neutral stance the Socialist leadership (except Nano) held about Enver Hoxha and the positive stance toward Marxism-Leninism, which was implemented in the programme and the statute of the party by Servet Pellumbi. They called the socialist leadership (except Nano, who was not affiliated with Labor Party) as "dinosaurs from the old epoch".

In 1996, Nano wrote a letter the 2nd Congress of the Party (Keshilli i Pergjithshem Drejtues), held on July–August 1996, to initiate a "Motion for Debate" to remove from the top positions of party anyone who was affiliated in any way with the Labour Party, because Nano thought that the top positions, i.e. the leadership of the party, should be held by intellectuals, like Rexhep Meidani, Pandeli Majko, Kastriot Islami, etc. This was an imperative because it was part of the ongoing process to reform the party in order to join the Socialist International and the Party of European Socialists. 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, also to deny Vladimir Lenin and Comintern and rehabilitate Karl Kautsky and Second Internationale. The motion was supported by the majority of the socialist members and also by the civil society, and was approved as a consequence by the congress.^{[unreliable source?]}

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. Berisha called untimely parliamentary elections on 29 June and he decreed a general amnesty to all prisoners in March 1997; Nano too was released from prison. Nano was found innocent by a court in Tirana for his alleged abuse of power and corruption in 1999.

The parliamentary elections of 29 June 1997 were an overwhelming victory for the Socialist Party of Albania. Nano was appointed prime minister by President Rexhep Meidani. 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. To avoid his murder by the angry mob, Nano decided to flee to the government residence in Pogradec. In the 1990s, Greece preferred and assisted Fatos Nano as Albanian leader due to him being Orthodox over Sali Berisha, a Muslim, as Nano was seen as being friendlier to Greek interests. The government of Fatos Nano was viewed by Turkey as having a pro-Greek orientation and expressed some dissatisfaction, though during that time, it still maintained close military relations with Albania in rebuilding its armed forces and a military base. During 1998, Albania's Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) membership was suspended and temporarily withdrawn by prime minister Fatos Nano, who viewed it as inhibiting Albania's European aspirations. On 28 September 1998 Nano chose to resign and retired from political life.