Life under a flamboyant autocrat’s rule in Albania

It’s not every day you see the sitting prime minister of a country acting in a blockbuster movie. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, a former painter, has been known for his attention-grabbing statements and shenanigans ever since becoming mayor of the capital Tirana in 2000.

His decision to play the lead character’s eccentric uncle in the romantic comedy I Love Tropoja, released earlier this year, did not surprise the Albanian public. Neither did the long black wig, cat eye lenses and tattoos he sported for the role. However, critics say that these stunts, such as attending high-level meetings in Brussels wearing sneakers and sweatpants, risk distracting the international public from his increasingly authoritarian grasp on the country.

“There are endless articles out there portraying Rama as an artist-turned-politician who is liberal and open-minded, and as someone who applies his artistic sensibilities to his politics,” says Gresa Hasa, a political activist. “We in Albania know that this is not true.”

Located in southeast Europe next to former Yugoslav states Montenegro, Kosovo and North Macedonia, Albania is often overlooked in favour of its more tumultuous neighbors. In the 1990s when Yugoslavia fell apart and descended into war, Albania’s transition from a communist hermit state into a democratic society was sparsely reported on.

Today, the country is known as an underrated European tourist destination with over 300 kilometers of glittering, pristine beaches, and for the quirky remnants of its communist past – such as the hundreds of thousands of bunkers built by its paranoid communist leader Enver Hoxha, who thrived on convincing the population of imminent attacks from both the West and the East.

Enter Edi Rama. A tall, striking figure whose witty comebacks at the expense of opponents are often paired with his trademark mischievous smile, he believes he is precisely what Albania needs right now.

“This was the new element that Rama brought to Albanian politics,” says Gresa. “Since the fall of communism in 1991, if we take into account all the leaders in the country, he stands out as the only one who challenged the image of a stodgy politician and actively uses his image as an extension of his approach to politics.”

An adept user of social media, Rama often cuts out the middleman and speaks to the public directly – he boasts the most Twitter and Facebook followers of any Balkan leader. In 2017, he launched Edi Rama TV, a Facebook TV channel dedicated to his activities that has become a valuable source for mainstream outlets. He claims it is staffed entirely by volunteers.

“Rama knew that this would lead to him garnering wide support in the West and distract from his activities in the country,” explains Gresa.

His autocratic bent came to the fore at the onset of the ongoing pandemic when he became the first European leader to send the army onto the streets, not to assist with humanitarian efforts but to maintain security – and to show force.

“Every single decision in the country was made by one person who communicated with the public through his Facebook account,” stresses Gresa, highlighting that there was no public debate around the response to the pandemic that followed Rama’s decisions.

“All we had during a time of fear and panic were the Prime Minister’s Facebook statuses,” says Gresa. His deployment of the army was “done purely so Rama could show his power and his level of control over the country.”

But perhaps the incident that provoked the most widespread ire – and finally made the international public aware of Rama’s tendency to completely disregard opposing views in the country – was the demolition of the National Theatre, a beloved landmark in the centre of the city, under the cover of darkness.

Special units armed with automatic weapons and wearing riot gear and balaclavas stormed into the theatre sometime after midnight on 14 May – a Sunday – and detained the activists and artists who had been camping out in the building. A massive bulldozer proceeded to decimate the building before dawn.

Protests erupted the following day, disregarding concerns related to the ongoing pandemic, as thousands of citizens felt tricked both by the manner and the circumstances surrounding the demolition of the theatre that had stood in the capital since 1939.

“The protests were an instinctive reaction of civic-minded individuals to the offhand way in which the government dealt with an architectural landmark in the city that many people had an emotional connection to,” says Ervin Goci, a journalism lecturer who has been involved in various campaigns over the years, including the Alliance for the Protection of the National Theatre.

The bold modernist structure was recognisable by the sharp angles that define most of the centre of Tirana, built during the Italian Fascist occupation of Albania. While the government proposed to replace the building with a new theatre designed by a Danish architect, the fact that this would be done through a concessionary agreement involving Fusha, a regular client of the government involved in several other projects in the capital, raised eyebrows. In exchange for building the theater, Fusha would receive public land and the right to construct six tower blocks close to the new theater worth over 100 million euros.

This enraged both artists and the public, since it was clear that the demolition of the theatre was not merely meant to upgrade the old building. “For years in Tirana, especially since 2015, there has been a vehement increase in construction projects conducted by companies registered overnight that had nothing to do with construction,” explains Ervin. “Suddenly they were building 18-storey buildings and none of us knew where the money was coming from.”

“The first protests against the theatre were in 2004,” explains Ervin. Initially the cause was led by actors and supported by the public. When it became clear that this was not merely an issue involving the artistic community – rather, a cause closely tied to the city – others decided to step in.

“This is the first case in Albania’s modern history of the community taking over a building from the government – against the government’s will – and turning it into a collectively managed space overseen by a group of like-minded people,” says Ervin.

Rama spared no sympathy in announcing his plans for the theatre. “Rama just went on TV and said ‘We’re tearing this down’. No public debate was had about the alternatives, about whether the theatre should be torn down or not,” Ervin continues.

In many former socialist countries all over central, eastern and southeastern Europe, government-led or managed construction projects are a nifty way for autocratic leaders to dole out favours to financial backers, as well as a means to launder significant sums of public funds. Tirana is not an outlier in this respect – the city has witnessed a massive facelift in the past decade, and not always for the better.

The properties and land affected by such initiatives are often sold below their market value and seen as scraps exchanged for political support and complacency. In the capital, Edi Rama’s Socialist Party has an absolute majority – the opposition boycotted the 2019 local elections as a sign of protest against the ties between the government and organised crime. This was also when the theatre was transferred from national to municipal ownership.

The opposition in Albania is dominated by parties such as the conservative Democratic Party, which held power soon after the country's transition into democracy with the promise of ridding it of the ills of communism. Instead, the government supported elaborate Ponzi schemes that some say involved about a third of the country’s population. The collapse of these schemes led to massive civil unrest and about 2,000 casualties, in a series of events some compare to a civil war.

Their stint in government in the mid to late 2010s was also marked by corruption, as well as populist rhetoric parroted by gaffe-prone Prime Minister Sali Berisha. It comes as no surprise, then, that Rama, running in 2013 under the campaign slogan of rebirth or “Rilindje” in Albanian, was seen as a welcome alternative.

Rama knows this. His mistake, according to critics, is that he has stopped worrying about the needs and demands of those who voted him into power. He also knows what his role is in relation to the European Union.

“The EU needs someone like Rama in Albania. We are in a country where we have no opposition, where the institutions are dysfunctional and trust towards them is minimal,” concludes Gresa. “The EU needs someone like Rama to mask the difficulty of achieving concrete change in the country and make it seem like the country is on the right track.”