Four years ago, it was Imelda's shoes that caused the fuss. Now, it's Elena's shoes.

　　There's something about political power that breeds extravagance,a lesson reinforced by the trappings of wealth left hind last week by fleeing despots in both Romania and Panama.

　　When the Marcoses were forced out of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos' shoe collection enough for her to change daily for nine years without wearing the same pair twice was the talk of Manila.

　　The pattern is much the same nowadays in Bucharest,swheresElena Ceausescu boasted a wardrobe featuring shoes with diamond-encrusted heels one day, only to find herself in front of a firing squad the next.

　　"We live in a normal apartment, just like every other citizen," Elena Ceausescu told a military court during her closed trial.

　　That's not what Romania's new authorities found when they turned up at the Ceausescu residence. Instead of a "normal apartment," they discovered a 40-room mansion crammed with valuable paintings, exquisitefountains and gold-plated fixtures in the bathrooms. Every room had a television and a videocassette player.

　　In Panama, Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega also cut few corners in pursuit of the good life. He had an array of houses and apartments in Panama, France and the Dominican Republic, a collection of personal aircraft and three large pleasure yachts Macho I, Macho II and Macho III.

　　Former Haitian President Jean-Claude Duvalier, who fled the same month as Marcos, was worth an estimated US million.

　　The late Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza built up a fortune worth about US million through investments in prostitution, gambling and construction, according to Walter LaFeber, an historian.

　　The ranks of showy strongmen have diminished lately with the accelerating trend toward democracy. Emperor Bokassa I, who spent US million on his coronation in 1976, is a dim memory to his former subjects in the Central African Republic.