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By:
Veton Surroi
- 15 October 2026 10:42
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- The protests in Albania and their escalation into violence mark a new phase of the civic revolt against the government and the crisis of its legitimacy. The government has been largely personalized in Prime Minister Rama; consequently, the revolt has also focused on the demand for his resignation.
- The delegitimization of power began earlier, with the weakening of democratic counterweights. Within the Socialist Party, the personalized power of the prime minister has not been confronted with an internal democracy that would limit it. Outside it, the opposition has not managed to exercise effective control, partly due to its own weaknesses. Nor has the dominant part of the media fulfilled this function, due to the combination of the commercial interests of the owners with the political interests of the government.
- In the absence of democratic balance, SPAK, with its actions against organized crime and corruption, has been perceived as a counterweight to the government and has become an untouchable institution, even without effective oversight by formally democratic institutions. SPAK's accusations so far point to a connection between the government and organized crime, on the one hand, and to governance with a high culture of corruption, on the other.
- Some of the SPAK accusations provide clear indications of money laundering from international drug trafficking. This activity in the last five years has injected billions of dollars into the country's financial circulation, created a construction and development dynamic outside the logic of a market economy, artificially strengthened the lek and fueled inflation. This has made the cost of living burden for the citizen of Albania heavier in relation to income, compared to the average of European Union countries.
- A number of citizens reacted to this government in June of this year with the “flamingo revolution”, with creative and peaceful marches, protesting against some of the manifestations of the personalization of power by the Prime Minister in Zvërnec/Sazan, namely against the laws that enabled these actions. The Prime Minister did not address this protest at its core: opposition to a way of decision-making that treats public property as the domain of personalized power. Ignoring the peaceful protest weakened the belief that power can be influenced by democratic means and created ground for the radicalization of discontent.
- Albania has entered a crisis from which it cannot recover by returning to the previous state. Moreover, this could be the entry into an even deeper crisis next year, if the flow of money flowing into the country's economy were to be significantly reduced. Such a thing could shake the country's finances and economy. In the end, this would also be a security crisis at the state level.
- The country urgently needs a political crisis management process. The package should include de-escalation, protection of peaceful protest, impartial investigation of the violence, and guarantees for the continued independent work of justice. It should also create the legal and political conditions for free and fair elections next year. For the elections to produce a way out of the crisis, a special package of electoral guarantees should be prepared that, among other things, would limit in advance the influence of illicit money, the misuse of state resources, and inequality in access to the media.
