Lajme flash
The protest that weakened Rama's government
2026-07-12 11:05:00 / IDE
The contributions of the civic protest to the consolidation of Albanian democracy are already numerous. The protest has denounced the current development model that enriches a minority and impoverishes the vast majority of citizens, by donating and privatizing public spaces. It has shaken to the core our political system of eternal leaders and barracks parties without thought, without pluralism and internal democracy.
There is also no shortage of concrete achievements of the protest, such as the integrity of SPAK, an institution that Rama and Berisha are planning to get rid of through a reform of the justice system. The protest, which to a large extent stems from SPAK's work in exposing corruption, both under Rama and Berisha, has given SPAK legitimacy and oxygen to continue its work.
But the greatest achievement of the protest is the political aging of the current government and Prime Minister Rama. The youthful spirit and massive participation of young people in the protests has exposed the aging of the current government and the policies of the current Prime Minister.
Prime Minister Rama's confrontation with the creativity, enthusiasm, and courage of Albanian youth has highlighted the same tactics that Albanian rulers have used in the face of civic protest, from Enver to Ramiz and Berisha.
Every time the Albanian people and youth have risen up to protest against dictatorship, lack of freedom, government corruption and social injustice, our rulers have started to argue that dark forces are behind the protests. In the 1990s-1991, Ramiz Alia denounced the “dark forces” that were behind the youth and popular protest against the oppressive communist regime that he represented.
A similar refrain was repeated by Sali Berisha in the 1997 protests after the collapse of the pyramid schemes. Here too, the problem was not with the ruler or his government but with the Greek and Serbian agencies or the radical communist groups that manipulated ordinary citizens.
The same old reaction as the politics of rule in Albania itself appeared in the case of Rama. Once again, the ruler Rama began to denounce Greek, Iranian agents or fascist and Nazi movements within the protest. The same denunciation logic as that of Berisha in 1997, only this time instead of the red communist conspiracy, the fascism of the protesters is denounced.
Unable to delegitimize the protest, the prime minister has now decided to ignore it with the slogan "the protest in its work and us in our work." It must be admitted that no Albanian ruler has so openly and arrogantly expressed the thesis: "I don't care about the citizen!"
It is an innovation that actually highlights the oldness of the current government. It is the same way of governing that puts the ruler at the center and not the citizen. It responds to the protest and the citizen's demand to be heard and to be part of the decision-making with ignorance and deafness.
The Prime Minister's philosophy is "you have the right to go out and protest, I have the right to ignore you."
The protest has therefore highlighted that the current government and prime minister are political anachronisms that transform democracy into rule. It is the same old political model that privatizes public power for personal interests, that reduces political parties, parliament and the executive branch to extensions of the leader's will.
It is the same old politics that eliminates competition, pluralism and democracy within parties, making democracy outside them impossible. It is the same governance of Maliq and not of the law that takes all the powers from local government, making local democracy impossible. It is the same way of ruling that sacrifices the state to expand power.
Until yesterday, Rama found it easy to hide the antiquity of his political model. In the face of political fossils like Berisha and Berishism, he seemed young, innovative, and avant-garde. That's why his government invested heavily in keeping these fossils alive.
Of course, government propaganda, the media skills of the prime minister himself, and a handful of internationally renowned architects who fill their pockets with money from poor Albania helped to curate and consolidate this image.
Today, this image has been shattered both at home and abroad. For the first time, foreign media have experienced Prime Minister Rama's arrogance and contempt for free citizenship and journalism that contradicts his will.
And this is the exclusive merit of the youth and civic protest. It has highlighted for both Albanians and internationals the moldy reality of the government and the current prime minister. Rama's image as an innovative model of artistic democratic governance has now been replaced with the reality of an old ruler who is aging in power.
The protesters' demand for a new Albania, where party leaders and prime ministers are not eternal, where everyone benefits from development and not just the oligarchs, where citizens participate in decision-making, where votes are not threatened, bought or sold, where elections are real choices and not recycling, have highlighted how old the Albania that Prime Minister Rama was building was.
Thanks to the protest, the high-rise towers in Tirana and the luxury resorts of the Trump and Kushner families are now evidence of Edi Rama's old politics, where power is at the service of money and crime more than the citizen. These are the same facades that until yesterday served to sell us the political rule, capture and criminality of the state as a modern, European, futuristic and avant-garde vision./ LAPSI.AL
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