Elez Biberaj: Quo Vadis, Albania?
by Dr. Elez Bebiraj
Tirana Times, October 17, 2026 – Albania is facing the most serious political crisis of Edi Rama’s thirteen years in power. Protesters demanding the prime minister’s resignation have attacked government buildings, clashed with police, and damaged public and private property. The unrest has spread from Tirana to major urban centers across the country, exposing a level of public anger and frustration that the government appears to have profoundly underestimated. The unrest is not simply a reaction to recent events. It reflects a deeper crisis of governance, representation, and public trust that has been years in the making.
The outbreak of violence appears to have caught Rama completely off guard. For months, the Flamingo movement’s peaceful protests were dismissed, ridiculed, and ignored. Convinced they would eventually fade, Rama failed to grasp the depth of public frustration they reflected. The riots that followed exposed how badly he had misread the national mood.
The warning signs, however, had been building for years. The concentration of power, corruption, perceptions of state capture, and limited opportunities steadily eroded public trust. As a small political and economic elite prospered, many Albanians felt increasingly excluded from both the country’s progress and its political system.
Rama’s response to the riots has been characteristic of an increasingly authoritarian style of governance: relying on the police, blaming the opposition and outside forces, and largely ignoring the grievances that brought people into the streets. Most strikingly, he has portrayed the turmoil as a temporary flare-up rather than a fundamental challenge to his governing style. This approach has done little to stem the crisis and instead reinforces the image of a leader increasingly disconnected from the realities confronting his country. The unrest continues to spread, public anger remains undiminished, and reliance on force risks deepening rather than containing the turmoil.
Albania urgently needs dialogue and a credible process capable of restoring legitimacy, rebuilding trust, and charting a path forward. But the conditions necessary for such a process are largely absent. Years of Rama’s personalized rule have contributed to an institutional vacuum, hollowing out the very channels through which dialogue would normally occur. The institutional void is particularly striking at a moment of national crisis. Parliament, which should serve as the nation’s primary arena for debate and representation, has effectively removed itself from the crisis, canceling its session as unrest spread. The president, meanwhile, has shown little inclination to assume the role of convener or mediator that moments of national emergency require. Meaningful debate within the ruling Socialist Party has become exceedingly rare, communication between government and opposition has largely collapsed, and many Albanians, particularly the young, feel disconnected from a political system that no longer reflects their aspirations. Civil society, independent intellectual voices, and other institutions that might help bridge political divides have remained largely peripheral to a national conversation that desperately needs them.
The gravity of the crisis, however, leaves little room for delay, indecision, or complacency. Political, intellectual, and civic forces must find a way forward. Any effort to resolve the crisis must extend beyond the traditional political establishment that helped produce the current impasse and include student activists, civil society organizations, independent voices, and representatives of younger generations. A revolt fueled largely by disillusionment with the country’s governing elites cannot be resolved by those same actors alone. The challenge is to build a process credible enough to regain the confidence of citizens who no longer believe the existing political system adequately represents them.
The international community also has an important role to play. The United States and the European Union have invested heavily in Albania’s democratic development and Euro-Atlantic integration. Yet Washington appears less inclined than in earlier periods to involve itself in democratic disputes abroad, while the EU has lost credibility among many Albanians because of its perceived tolerance of democratic backsliding and corruption under Rama’s rule. Even so, neither should remain a passive observer. Albania’s stability and democratic development remain important strategic interests for both Washington and Brussels. They should use their influence to facilitate a process that advances dialogue, compromise, and institutional reform. The objective should not be to impose solutions from outside, but to help create the conditions for a peaceful transition and democratic renewal.
Ultimately, it is up to Albanians themselves to find a way out of the current crisis. But that task will be difficult as long as the crisis remains inseparable from Rama’s own leadership. Having concentrated unprecedented authority in his own hands and presided over a system increasingly associated with corruption, patronage, and state capture, he now bears responsibility for a political breakdown that has evolved into a nationwide revolt. His continued refusal to acknowledge the depth of the crisis makes it increasingly difficult to see how he can lead Albania out of it. The gulf separating his government from society is too wide to be bridged through police action, rhetoric, or limited concessions.
The crisis has seriously undermined the political order built around Rama. There are growing signs of unease within the very establishment that has sustained his rule. While few Socialists have openly challenged him, many appear increasingly uncomfortable with both his governing style and his handling of the unrest. The same may be true of influential business and political interests whose support has long rested on the promise of stability and continued access to power. The widespread anger now sweeping the country is directed primarily at Rama himself. Having become the focal point of the crisis, he appears increasingly incapable of providing the leadership necessary to resolve it. Rama’s resignation has now become a prerequisite for restoring political legitimacy, lowering tensions, and opening the way to democratic renewal.
The challenge confronting Albania extends far beyond the fate of a single leader. Rama’s departure, whether voluntary or compelled by political reality, would only be the first, but necessary, step toward arresting the country’s political deterioration and creating the conditions to address the deeper structural problems that have brought it to its current impasse. The most viable path forward would be the formation of a broadly supported technical or transitional government charged with restoring stability, reopening channels of communication, and preparing the country for genuinely competitive elections. Its mandate, however, must extend beyond administering a political transition. It should begin addressing corruption, patronage networks, and alleged links between political, business, and criminal interests that have steadily eroded public confidence in state institutions.
Restoring trust requires more than a change of government. It requires a visible commitment to accountability at the highest levels of public life, including the impartial investigation of corruption allegations, the enforcement of the rule of law, and an end to the culture of impunity that has too often shielded top government officials and politically connected figures.
Equally important is ensuring that citizens feel genuinely represented within the political system. Conducting snap elections under the existing rules would risk reproducing many of the distortions that contributed to the present crisis. Albania’s electoral system favors the country’s two dominant parties, limiting opportunities for alternative political movements to emerge and compete effectively. A fundamental reform of the electoral framework must therefore precede any return to the ballot box.
The objective should not simply be cleaner elections but a more representative and open political system. Albania’s democracy needs greater space for new political forces, independent voices, civic initiatives, and younger leaders whose aspirations remain largely unrepresented. The country cannot overcome its crisis merely by rotating power among familiar actors. It must open the political arena to new ideas, new leadership, and younger generations that have become increasingly alienated from the institutions that govern them.
These measures, however necessary, would address only the immediate crisis. At its core, the current upheaval reflects the exhaustion of a political system defined by concentrated power, pervasive corruption, limited accountability, and declining public trust. The larger challenge is rebuilding Albania’s democratic foundations: strengthening institutions, restoring checks and balances, combating corruption, protecting media independence, and ensuring that public office serves citizens rather than entrenched political and economic interests.
Rama now faces a stark choice. By stepping aside, he could spare Albania months, perhaps years, of instability, polarization, and uncertainty while opening the way for national reconciliation and democratic renewal. Alternatively, he can dig in, continue down a path of confrontation, and rely on coercion and the instruments of state power to maintain his position. Such a strategy, even if successful in restoring short-term order, would do little to address the underlying causes of the crisis. Instead, it would risk deepening polarization, accelerating institutional decay, and prolonging a confrontation whose costs Albania can ill afford. In the process, it could overshadow much of what he has achieved since taking office in 2013, leaving his legacy defined not by the significant progress made under his leadership, but by his inability to recognize when the national interest required a different course.
Albania’s current crisis has exposed the limits of a political model that no longer commands the confidence of large segments of society. Periods of profound upheaval, however, can also create opportunities for renewal. The students and young activists who have emerged at the forefront of the current movement are heirs to the democratic aspirations that transformed Albania more than three decades ago. Their demands for accountability, representation, and opportunity reflect a determination to build a more responsive, inclusive, and democratic state.
Albania has repeatedly demonstrated a remarkable capacity for resilience in the face of adversity. The responsibility now rests with its political leaders to respond with the vision, restraint, and sense of national purpose this moment demands. If they succeed, the present turmoil may ultimately be remembered as the turning point that inspired a new generation to help fulfill Albania’s democratic aspirations.
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About the author
Elez Biberaj holds a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University and retired from the Voice of America in December 2023 after a 43-year career.
