Albania is being rocked by student protests. On Friday, as thousands of young people marched in Tirana, police used tear gas on protesters in front of the Education Ministry, and protesters threw stones. The protests escalated on October 15. During the protests that escalated on October 15, part of the ministry building was set on fire. The protests spread to Elbasan. They also reached Shkodër and Korçë. At least 160 people were detained.
The students’ peaceful protests are continuing. The students, who say they have been holding peaceful protests for 140 days but have been unable to make their voices heard, are demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama. Analyst Afrim Krasniqi also spoke. Afrim Krasniqi says that young people see no future in the country and believe that all resources are in the hands of oligarchs.
Rama, for his part, made a statement. Rama, who was elected to a fourth term last year on a promise of EU membership, said the protests were not a student movement and blamed “foreign powers.” The BBC’s analysis also offers an assessment. The BBC analysis includes the view that the government’s failure to respond to the demands has escalated the protests.
The country had previously seen protests dubbed the “flamingo revolution” against tourism projects worth a total of 5 billion euros planned by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner on the islands of Zvernec and Sazan in Vlorë. SPAK had opened an investigation in June over corruption allegations.
Why it matters
These protests show that the legitimacy of Rama, who was elected to a fourth term on a promise of EU membership, is being questioned among the younger generation. The transformation of the 140-day peaceful process into violence that went as far as setting a ministry building on fire lays bare, as the BBC analysis pointed out, the cost of the government’s failure to respond to the demands. The spread of the protests from Tirana to Elbasan, Shkodër, and Korçë shows that the discontent is not confined to the capital; when read together with the flamingo revolution against Kushner’s island projects and SPAK’s corruption investigation in June, it suggests that the reaction has been building up over the oligarchic order and the corruption allegations. Rama’s refusal to regard the protests as a student movement and his blaming of foreign powers indicate that crisis rhetoric has been preferred over dialogue. The question that remains open is whether the demand for resignation will be answered and how this wave will affect the political balance of the country on its path to the EU.