Politics
Albania’s students want Edi Rama gone. He’s blaming foreigners.
A week of student-led protests has spread across Albania, with about 500 detained. Rama refuses to resign and alleges, without evidence, foreign meddling.
It started with a few hundred students outside Albania’s Education Ministry. A week later, government buildings had been set on fire, about 500 people had been detained, and the prime minister was telling parents they could pay for what their children broke.
Student-led protests demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama began in Tirana on Tuesday, Oct. 13, Al Jazeera reported, and spread to universities in Elbasan and Shkoder within days. Rama, who has governed since 2013 and won a fourth term in elections last year, has refused to step down, according to Reuters reporting carried by NBC News.
I read a week of coverage from Tirana. What it describes is a generation that feels it has run out of reasons to stay, and a leader who has decided the problem is someone else’s.
From tuition to fire
Students had complained about the high cost of education and limited job prospects after graduation, Al Jazeera reported. They had been protesting peacefully for nearly three months before this week’s escalation, according to the same report. Earlier protests against Rama’s government had started over a planned luxury resort on Albania’s southern coast backed by investors including Jared Kushner.
Reuters reported in July that villagers said their land had been wrongfully sold for that project, and later that the seller was wanted by prosecutors on suspicion of drug trafficking, which his lawyer denied, according to NBC News. Reuters found no evidence of wrongdoing by Kushner, who is not directly involved in the villagers’ dispute.
Then the protests turned. Demonstrators set fire to several buildings, including the prime minister’s office, ministry buildings and bank branches, Al Jazeera reported. Police used water cannon and tear gas.
On Saturday, Oct. 17, the fifth day, thousands of young Albanians gathered outside the Education Ministry again, according to NBC News. A group of masked young people threw rocks at riot police, who answered with stun grenades, tear gas and a water cannon. Al Jazeera reported that police also fired rubber bullets.
Police figures showed 500 protesters detained so far and 330 released, Reuters reported. About 120 police officers and 45 protesters had been registered as injured, though many protester injuries likely went unrecorded, according to the report.
Rama’s answer
“Governments change through democratic elections,” Rama told Reuters, according to Al Jazeera. In a Facebook post, he wrote of “difficult times” and his duty “to protect our citizens, guarantee justice, and move Albania forward,” NBC News reported. He framed his mandate around getting Albania “in the European Union by 2030.”
He also went further. Rama blamed foreign intelligence services, alleging that Russia and Iran wanted to destabilize Albania, and accused the opposition of involvement, Balkan Insight reported. He presented no concrete evidence, the outlet noted.
At a meeting with Tirana school principals, Rama said, “There are students who are extremist in their point of views.” He drew a line between protest and violence: “students who exercise their right to protest are not the problem,” he said, but “We are speaking about the exercising of violence.” And he warned: “Anyone present at a violent demonstration is a target for the State Police.”
He said families of minors would be held liable for damage, and that students could lose scholarships, financial aid and access to free education, Balkan Insight reported. His press office later said the warnings “do not imply the imposition of collective sanctions.”
Who gains from the framing
My read: blaming foreign hands is a familiar move for a long-serving leader under pressure. It turns a domestic grievance into a security threat, and a security threat justifies a harder response. It also lets Rama tell Brussels that he is protecting stability rather than facing a revolt.
The writer Fatos Lubonja, a former political prisoner, said the speech contained “open threats against anyone daring to protest, even peacefully,” Balkan Insight reported, and compared the language to that “used by [former Albanian dictator] Enver Hoxha.” That’s a heavy comparison in Albania, and Lubonja makes it as a former political prisoner.
The European Union’s delegation condemned the “violent escalation,” according to Al Jazeera. Albania and Montenegro lead the accession process among Balkan countries, NBC News reported, and analysts say the country’s role as a hub for laundering drug and weapons money complicates its bid.
The view from the street
“What you are seeing is the boiling point of months of suppressed grievances,” the journalist Arlis Alikaj told Al Jazeera. Afrim Krasniqi of Tirana’s Institute for Political Studies said the escalation reflected “frustration not only with the government itself.”
For a student in Tirana, the math is personal: tuition that’s hard to pay, a degree that may not lead to a job at home, and a government that has been in power for most of their lives. Being told your parents will pay for property damage, and that your scholarship is at risk, lands differently when you’re 19.
What we don’t know
Albania has been here before. In December 2018, student protests over education costs led Rama to dismiss eight ministers and announce a “Pact for the University,” Al Jazeera reported, though some demands went unmet.
There is no national election scheduled, and no clear leader has emerged from a movement commentators describe as decentralized and organized through social media. Rama is betting he can wait it out. The students are betting he can’t talk his way out of this one.
Sources
- Al Jazeera: “Boiling point”: why students are protesting against Albania’s Edi Rama
- Al Jazeera: Albanian police fire rubber bullets as protests escalate
- NBC News (Reuters): Albanian anti-government protesters clash with police in Tirana
- Balkan Insight: Albanian PM Rama steps up rhetoric against student protesters
- Al Jazeera: “Horizontal revolt”: why Albania’s young protesters want Rama to go
- France 24: student protests spread in Albania
