From elections and party politics to local government, media and construction, Prime Minister Edi Rama’s hold on power now faces a new test.
In June of this year, a book setting out an ambitious vision for Albania’s physical transformation was published: The Albanian Files. Featuring a foreword by Prime Minister Edi Rama, the book brings together around 520 projects by 60 international architectural studios — from skyscrapers and luxury apartment buildings to hotels, resorts and developments proposed in coastal and environmentally sensitive areas. One of its contributors is Dutch architect Reinier de Graaf, a partner at the internationally renowned architecture firm OMA. In a deliberately provocative letter in the book, de Graaf suggests dispensing with elections altogether and having Rama continue as “president for life — maybe even King.”
The suggestion is deliberately absurd. But behind the provocation lies a more serious question: what does it say about Rama’s relationship with power and about the political system that has developed around him?
Albania is not alone in confronting such questions. Across Europe, autocracy and democratic backsliding have become increasingly common terms for describing the erosion of democratic institutions under elected leaders. Hungary under Viktor Orbán and Serbia under Aleksandar Vučić are just two examples of this broader global trend.
Yet Rama has rarely been treated internationally as an autocrat. Until around 90 days ago, he was more widely known as a liberal, pro-European leader from the Balkans. By supporting Ukraine, openly criticizing Russia and cultivating closer relations with Serbia, Rama positioned himself as a reliable partner for Brussels on foreign policy and regional stability.
Then, around 90 days ago, Albania drew headlines across regional and international media through what has come to be known as the Flamingo Revolution. What began as a protest by activists and residents against a luxury resort development in Zvërnec — promoted by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump and linked to Kushner’s investment firm, Affinity Partners — soon drew wider attention. The protests gained particular momentum when the Albanian public saw a protester being dragged in Zvërnec by a masked security guard while police stood by doing nothing. A video of the incident helped trigger a massive anti-government protest. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets.
What pulled the trigger? Albanians are used to witnessing protected land, including archaeological sites — such as the Butrint Archaeological Park, as well as sites in Durres, Lezha and Tirana — damaged, built over or threatened by construction projects. But while the protests may have been triggered by one development project, the anger they exposed goes far beyond Zvërnec. At its core is a broader question about how decisions are made under Rama, who benefits from them and how much space remains to challenge the system he has built.
One way to understand that broader frustration is through the system of state capture Rama has built. Across elections, local administration, the economy, the media, cultural institutions and the education system, the boundaries between party, state and private interests have become increasingly blurred, producing a system that often rewards political loyalty and proximity to those in power.
So how does Rama’s system operate? Why can it be understood as state capture? And where is the EU in all of this?
The rise of Edi Rama
Understanding the Rama system hinges on understanding Rama himself.
Rama comes from a well-connected and prominent family in Albania. His father, Kristaq Rama (1932-1998), was a sculptor and artist, whose work was widely considered the apex of Albanian socialist realism. Following in his father’s footsteps, Rama studied painting and pursued an artistic career, although he never attained the same prominence as his father. At the same time, he also played basketball, but neither pursuit brought him significant national public recognition.
Rama first entered politics in 1998, at the invitation of Fatos Nano (1952-2025), who appointed him as minister of culture. Nano was the leader of the Socialist Party from 1991 to 2005 and served as prime minister on three occasions during that period. When Rama became mayor of Tirana in 2000 –– a position he would go on to hold for 11 years –– he made his mark by painting the facades of rundown communist-era apartment blocks in bright colors and bold patterns. His approach to transforming the capital brought him international recognition, including the World Mayor Award in 2004. But the transformation of Tirana also had another side. During Rama’s time as mayor, the capital experienced a construction boom, with many public spaces transformed into construction sites.
Rama fundamentally changed both the party elite and its mode of operation.
Rama formally joined the Socialist Party in 2003 and became its leader in 2005, after Nano resigned following the party’s significant electoral defeat to the Democratic Party, ending eight years of Socialist rule. Rama’s rise to the party leadership marked the beginning of a deeper transformation. The Socialist Party is the successor to the communist-era Party of Labor of Albania, which underwent a significant transformation between 1991 and 1992. Its high-ranking officials belonged to two main groups: former communist apparatchiks and a more diverse group of left-leaning intellectuals, professionals and political newcomers. Since its reconstitution in 1991, however, the party had never been led so completely by a charismatic one-man leader. Rama fundamentally changed both the party elite and its mode of operation.
A key step in Rama’s consolidation of control came in 2008, when he struck a deal with Democratic Party leader and then Prime Minister Sali Berisha to alter the electoral code. Up until 2008, Albania had a hybrid voting system. Out of the 140 parliamentary seats, 100 were filled by MPs elected in single-member constituencies, while the remaining 40 were allocated from national proportional lists to compensate for disproportionality. This allowed voters to directly elect most of their parliamentary representatives, contributing to a more competitive electoral system. Under the system introduced in 2008, the country was divided into 12 electoral districts and voters could vote only for a party or coalition, not an individual candidate. Consequently, party leaders gained greater control over the candidate lists as the changes strengthened both leaders’ control over their parties and made it easier to marginalize competing factions within their respective parties –– effectively turning them into the makers or breakers of political careers within their parties.
This gave Rama increasingly powerful tools for deciding who could advance politically and who could not. Through various maneuvers –– changing the party structure, controlling leadership elections, controlling the MP candidate lists, marginalizing opponents within the party, denying critics safe electoral positions, promoting loyalists, publicly delegitimizing critics and canceling internal party elections –– Rama removed or sidelined a series of potential challengers, among them former ministers, longtime MPs, party strategists and reformist voices.
Rama’s gradual elimination of the old party elite can be understood through the cartel party, a political model introduced by political scientists Richard Katz and Peter Mair, which describes how centralized leadership and the use of state resources and public offices help guarantee the electoral success of party leaders while diminishing the voice and influence of party members.
The last time the Socialists held a competitive election for their party leader was in 2009.
Through the new system, Rama promoted those who were loyal to him and wealthy businesspeople, individuals who often had no political experience. Some who were promoted had criminal records or a history of other serious legal issues. In 2015, amid pressure from the EU and US, Rama’s government and the opposition agreed on a decriminalization law barring people convicted of specific crimes from public office. Its implementation resulted in MPs, mayors and hundreds of other officials — including several Socialist Party figures — losing or resigning from their positions.
By then, though, serious internal challenges to Rama had become increasingly rare. The latest major challenge came from the prominent writer and journalist Ben Blushi, a former friend of his. Rama had won his first parliamentary election in the 2013 general election under the banner of Rilindja (Renaissance), promising to rebuild the relationship between the state and its citizens, fight high-level corruption, depoliticize institutions, provide free healthcare and create 300,000 jobs. By 2015, however, Blushi was publicly challenging Rama over what he saw as the broken promises of Rilindja, alongside excessive centralization, the lack of internal party democracy and his failure to do enough to fight drug production and trafficking.
In 2016, Blushi even challenged Rama to call a party leadership election. However, he could not pose a serious challenge to Rama, because by then, the party was dominated by “yes men” who relied on Rama for their careers and well-being. The last time the Socialists held a competitive election for their party leader was in 2009.
Ultimately, Rama appears to see his position at the head of the Socialist Party as his own to determine. A few days before last year’s parliamentary elections, Rama stated in an interview that he would vacate the Socialist Party leadership only when he himself chooses to.
The business of winning elections
Following the electoral reform of 2008, the Albanian electoral code has undergone repeated revisions, amendments and adjustments, aimed less at improving representation than at maintaining the dominance of the two established parties. Until 2020, these changes were primarily agreed upon by the Democrats and Socialists. Since 2020, Rama, backed by a solid majority in Parliament, has introduced amendments that critics have argued benefit his party, amendments that emulate Orbán’s authoritarian style.
One of the main changes in 2020 was the abolition of the previous form of pre-election coalitions, under which coalition partners could run separate candidate lists while pooling their votes for seat allocation. Such coalitions had played an important role in Rama’s own rise to power in 2013. Under the new rules, though, parties wishing to compete together had to do so on a joint electoral list, reducing the autonomy smaller coalition partners had enjoyed under the previous system and making negotiations over places on the common list more important. Although the 2020 reform also introduced partially open lists, allowing voters to cast preference votes for individual candidates, party-set rankings remained difficult to overturn.
The rules were changed again in 2024: for the 2025 election, parties submitted both a closed, fixed-order list and an open list subject to preference voting, with the closed list taking precedence in the allocation of mandates. This again strengthened the role of party leaderships in determining who entered Parliament: candidates on the closed list were allocated seats before candidates on the preference-vote list. The effects created by the electoral code were evident in the 2025 election. For example, the newcomer center-right Shqipëria Behet Party (Albania Becomes) received around 4% (nearly 65,000) of the vote but secured only one mandate. The system uses the D’Hondt seat allocation formula, which tends to favor larger parties over smaller or new ones, particularly in electoral districts that elect relatively few MPs.
But the electoral system is only one part of Rama’s advantage. Even if voters are dissatisfied with him, he has another card to play. One of the most controversial features of the Rama system is the network of so-called patronazhistë (patronage agents), which provides another mechanism for entrenching political power. Because Albania is a relatively small country, where social networks are deeply interconnected, Rama has managed to develop a system that allows the Socialist Party to map, organize and mobilize voters at an unusually granular level.
How does the system work?
A 2021 data leak offered an unusually detailed glimpse into how the patronazhistë system operated. The leaked Socialist Party database contained information on more than 910,000 voters in the Tirana region, including information on their political preferences, employment and other personal data.
An analysis of the database at the time identified more than 9,000 Socialist patronazhistë, many of whom were employed by the state. Reports on the patronazhistë system described various tactics used to influence voters, including promises, pressure, intimidation and threats. Albania has a public sector workforce of around 190,000 employees, across central and local government, with patronazhistë identified across public administration, municipalities, police, armed forces and other state institutions, including teachers, nurses, doctors, tax inspectors, fiscal auditors and social workers. In other words, the patronazhistë system blurred the line between the ruling party and public administration, raising serious concerns about the misuse of state resources.
Another mechanism that has repeatedly surfaced in Albanian elections under Rama is vote buying. And vote buying has also been linked to another phenomenon: the involvement of organized crime in election campaigns. In cases connected to the 2017 general election, including investigations into the districts of Durrës and Shijak — most notably File 339 — wiretaps and investigative documents revealed communications between organized crime figures and Socialist Party officials discussing alleged vote buying and voter influence, pointing to the influence of criminal groups over parts of the electoral process.
The capture of Parliament, local governance and the media
Alongside the amendments to the electoral code, Rama has also consolidated a commanding position in Parliament. Over the past 13 years, Rama has governed with a comfortable majority in Albania’s 140-seat parliament –– 83 in 2013 with his junior coalition partner, 74 for the Socialist Party in 2017 and 2021, and 83 in 2025. Meanwhile, on key votes, the Socialist majority has also secured support from MPs outside the party, including from opposition MPs, to reach the required 84 votes –– the three-fifths majority required for electoral legislation, the Penal and Civil Codes, and laws governing certain constitutional institutions.
At the same time, the quality of parliamentary representation and debate has deteriorated significantly. Parliament has few high-quality MPs, many of whom rarely speak in parliament or contribute to legislative amendments or proposed legislation, something reflected in the fact that most people know only a few dozen MPs. Parliament often passes legislation with limited scrutiny or substantive debate. Parliament’s diminished role is also reflected in Rama’s own rare attendance, except when presenting the annual budget. In 2024-2025, Rama went more than six months without appearing in Parliament, approaching the constitutional limit under which an MP can lose their mandate after more than six consecutive months of unexplained absence — an unusual prospect for a sitting prime minister.
Appointments to government positions, meanwhile, have often favored allegiance to Rama, including the appointment of individuals with limited prior political experience or established public profile, some coming from the private sector.
Ultimately, the party has increasingly become Rama, and Rama has become the party. Under his leadership, a quasi-cult of personality has emerged. This pattern is reflected in the Socialist Party’s organization, personalized government communication, symbolic politics, electoral campaigning and diplomacy at every level, all of which are centered around one person: Prime Minister Rama. This is a blend of party, leader and state messaging –– a dynamic illustrated when Elisa Spiropali, a senior Socialist figure who later served as speaker of Parliament and foreign minister, likened Rama to the national hero Skanderbeg, Albania’s 15th-century national hero, at a party rally in Tirana.
Yet the concentration of power does not stop at Parliament or central government; it also extends to local government, removing one of the ways opposition parties and civil society groups can prevent autocracy from consolidating power: building a grassroots movement around a popular democratic leader in a major city. In a piece for Foreign Affairs, Nina Hachigian argues that cities are autocrats’ worst enemy because popular mayors of large cities can serve as a counterweight to elected autocrats seeking to consolidate power.
The argument is also relevant to Albania, because between 2005 and 2013, Rama himself was leader of the opposition while also serving as mayor of Tirana until 2011. During much of this period, many of Albania’s major cities were under Socialist control. Controlling the major cities was important because it allowed the opposition to provide a counterweight to the Democratic-led central government by demonstrating an alternative style of governance.
The Socialist control of major cities posed a significant obstacle to then-Prime Minister Berisha’s efforts to consolidate his grip on power, particularly because his Democratic Party lacked a parliamentary majority on its own and he also lacked control over the country’s main cities. Restricted by these limitations, Berisha was compelled to reach agreements with Rama on key issues, thereby giving the Socialists breathing room.
Rama is now in a much different territory. The local power that once allowed the Socialists to counterbalance Berisha’s central government now reinforces Rama’s own control: the Socialist Party governs nationally while also controlling many of Albania’s major cities. Tirana, Durrës, Korçë, Elbasan, Vlora and Fier have been under Socialist control for much of the period since 2000, and after 2007 many of their mayors have been handpicked by Rama and are largely beholden to him. Some of these current mayors have become so detached from their communities that reports claim they live in the capital and spend only limited time in their own municipalities, an issue that Rama himself raised publicly.
The way Rama handles the local authorities demonstrates how little autonomy they retain. He brings mayors together at events where he is the main speaker, delivering speeches that often last for hours. The mayors listen, some even taking notes, while Rama cracks jokes and occasionally mocks them.
Following the 2025 parliamentary election, which secured Rama a fourth consecutive term as prime minister, he called for the resignation or dismissal of municipal directors, heads of administrative units and other senior local officials across many municipalities. Large numbers of officials subsequently resigned after Rama demanded a “refresh” of local administrations, citing poor performance and shortcomings in public services.
Although many were later reinstated in the same position or moved to other positions, this episode showed that local autonomy was not worth the paper it was written on. While most officials complied, only a few mayors from small towns refused to carry out Rama’s demand, arguing that their officials were performing well or that decisions over local staff belonged to the municipality.
The opposition can formally participate in elections but faces formidable obstacles to defeating the governing party.
The solid parliamentary majority, combined with control of the major cities, has created a political system in which the opposition can formally participate in elections but faces formidable obstacles to defeating the governing party.
The same logic of control extends to the media. Press freedom and media independence have become another arena where the effects of state capture are evident. While the country does not have direct censorship or any laws along those lines, the media is where political power, concentrated ownership, economic dependency, and informal networks converge, producing a media environment in which media outlets are often independent on paper, but in practice, restrained in what they can investigate and report.
One element of Albania’s media-freedom problem is that influential media is concentrated in the hands of a small number of owners. In 2023, four owners — the Frangaj family, Hoxha family, Hysenbelliu family and Carlo Bollino — accounted for nearly 87% of the country’s free-to-air television audience. Albania’s media are also vulnerable to economic and political pressure: state funding is an important source of revenue, while some major media owners have business interests in sectors that directly benefit from public contracts or building permits granted by the government. A notable case came in 2019, when Focus Media Group, owned by Irfan Hysenbelliu, canceled two programs critical of the government, hosted by journalists Ylli Rakipi and Adi Krasta. The closures followed allegations that Hysenbelliu had come under pressure from Prime Minister Rama and Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj (who has been in pre-trial detention since February 2025 on corruption and money-laundering charges). The case prompted a media-freedom alert on the Council of Europe’s Platform for the Safety of Journalists.
The result is that much of Albania’s mainstream media, while formally independent, operates in an environment strongly tilted toward Rama and the governing Socialist Party. This was visible during the 2025 election campaign, when SP representatives dominated political coverage on the country’s most-watched television channels, while smaller parties struggled for comparable visibility.
When development becomes control
Understanding the current Flamingo Revolution protests requires an analysis not only of Albania’s political asphyxiation but also of economic malpractice. Two sectors in particular have shaped the country’s recent economic transformation: construction and tourism. Both have attracted significant investment, but they have also raised persistent concerns about money laundering, corruption, environmental damage and who ultimately benefits from this development.
In recent years, Tirana has experienced a rapid boom in high-rise construction, with apartment prices rising sharply and becoming increasingly unaffordable for much of the population. In Tirana alone, almost 53,000 unoccupied housing units have been reported. These towers have sprung up like mushrooms after the rain. But why is so much construction taking place despite declining sales and a large number of unoccupied homes? Part of the explanation lies in Rama’s vision for large-scale architecture, alongside persistent concerns about money laundering in the construction and real-estate sectors.
This construction boom is taking place within a wider economy where informality and corruption remain significant concerns. By 2025, reports estimated that up to 30 percent of the Albanian economy was informal, while corruption was estimated to cost the country between €900 million and €1.2 billion each year, accounting for up to 4% of total GDP. According to Transparency International’s Corruption Index, Albania ranked 91st, with only Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina ranking lower among the Western Balkan countries.
Tourism is the other major part of this transformation. Even though tourism has increased dramatically in the past four years, hotel and resort construction has also raised significant environmental concerns, as demonstrated by the Green Coast in Palasa in Vlora, the Manastiri Bay Resort near Butrint, or the property conflict in Rrjoll, Lezha. Furthermore, the construction of private resorts means that the few remaining public beach areas could soon fall into the hands of Albania’s business elites. Albania has relatively limited public beach space, as large stretches of its coastline are operated by the private sector, which charges between €10 and €50 per day for access.
In 2024, Albania reportedly received roughly 11.7 million foreign visitors, which is a huge number for a country with a population of 2.3 million. Despite this massive influx of tourists, Albania remains among the lower-income economies in Europe. Undoubtedly, tourism has generated significant revenue, yet its benefits have not been distributed equally across society.
To make further sense of this economic malpractice, it is worth looking again at the recently published The Albanian Files, which presents Rama’s vision for Albania’s large-scale physical transformation. Among the hundreds of projects presented in the book, the most prominent — and now the most controversial — are the Kushner-linked developments involving Zvërnec and Sazan Island. The scale of the proposed transformation is enormous: the wider investment has been valued in the billions, while the proposed resort on Sazan alone would transform a significant part of Albania’s largest island. Zvërnec, meanwhile, forms part of the Vjosa-Narta protected landscape, an important habitat and breeding ground for numerous bird species, including flamingos. Opposition to development in these areas is what brought Rama’s model of large-scale tourism development into direct confrontation with the movement that became the Flamingo Revolution.
Seen in this wider context, two major concerns have emerged from the Albanian Files. First, many of the 520 projects appear to have been developed with limited public discussion or consultation with independent local experts. Second, questions remain about the transparency surrounding these developments and their financing. Design fees can reach 60 euros per square meter, with the design costs of individual projects ranging from €300,000 to €2 million. Compared with Albania’s 2026 state budget of €9.1 billion, this scale of investment raises an obvious question: where will the money come from? And to what extent could illicit capital be involved?
Can Rama be defeated?
Rama has managed to consolidate his power by exploiting the absence of a credible alternative, particularly from the largest opposition party, the Democratic Party. The Democrats have been plagued by internal divisions, leadership disputes, a lack of resources, and a reluctance to refresh its political organization and leadership, rendering it more of an enabler than a challenger to Rama. The Democratic Party’s biggest crisis is its long-standing leader, Berisha. Although he resigned after being defeated by Rama in 2013, he has never left the political stage. In 2022, Berisha returned to lead the Democratic Party after a bitter struggle with Lulzim Basha, whom Berisha had handpicked to lead the party in 2013.
Berisha’s return was problematic not because the Democratic Party had lost one election after another, but because of the political and legal baggage surrounding Berisha himself. In 2021, the U.S. State Department designated him for involvement in significant corruption, effectively barring him and members of his immediate family from entering the U.S. The following year, he was also barred from entering the United Kingdom. The U.S. entry restriction was lifted in June 2026. Critics have argued that Berisha returned to the leadership of the Democratic Party not primarily to defeat Rama, but to strengthen his political position as he faced corruption investigations and sought to challenge the U.S. and U.K. measures against him.
The odds are heavily stacked in Rama’s favor. But that does not make him unbeatable.
This leaves Rama facing an opposition weakened not only by the political system, but also by its own leadership. Newer parties that have tried to position themselves outside the long-standing dominance of the Socialist and Democratic parties — Agron Shehaj’s Mundësia, Adriatik Lapaj’s Nisma Shqipëria Bëhet and Arlind Qori’s Lëvizja Bashkë — have broadened the opposition landscape, but together they obtained only four seats in the 2025 election and remain too small electorally to pose a serious national challenge to Rama on their own.
The odds are therefore heavily stacked in Rama’s favor. But that does not make him unbeatable. Orbán’s defeat in Hungary after 16 years in power is a reminder that even deeply entrenched political leaders can lose.
Defeating Rama, however, would require more than daily protests. But the protests have already achieved something important: they have challenged the international image Rama has carefully cultivated since taking office. Despite his wit, charisma and contemporary image, the protests have presented another Rama to the world –– one not so different from the other autocrats of our time.
This has probably hit Rama where it hurts most: the international image he has invested in for years. For much of his time in office, international coverage focused on his sophisticated regional diplomacy, unwavering advocacy for EU membership, support for Ukraine, his “artist-politician” persona, his choice of attire, his contributions to global security, or his hosting international events in Tirana. Increasingly, however, international coverage has turned to corruption, environmental destruction, money laundering, dubious investment deals and media control — including the recent wave of anti-government protests known as the Flamingo Revolution.
And where is the EU in all of this? Rama’s international image matters partly because Brussels has been central to it. The EU has played a dual role in Albania’s state capture: as both constrainer and legitimator. As Albania’s most important external political partner and the institution that ultimately will determine its path toward membership, the EU has considerable leverage to demand democratic reforms. At the same time, it seems the EU can tolerate elements of state capture when political stability and geopolitical interests are at stake, particularly as Albania remains closely aligned with Brussels on foreign policy, regional cooperation and support for Ukraine.
Rama’s autocratic style rests on convincing the EU that he is its best hope for stability, reform and European integration, while using anti-democratic tools at home to make electoral defeat increasingly difficult.
The accession process illustrates this contradiction. It has required Albania to undertake extensive reforms, particularly in the areas of rule of law and democratic governance. While Rama has endorsed these reforms and Albania has made formal progress in the accession process — including opening all 33 negotiating chapters — the reality tells a different story.
Rama has found a way to present his style of state capture to Brussels as posing little threat. This is the central paradox of Rama’s rule: his autocratic style rests on convincing the EU that he is its best hope for stability, reform and European integration, while using anti-democratic tools at home to make electoral defeat increasingly difficult. The result is a system that can arguably be described as competitive authoritarianism, underpinned by state capture.
That brings the question back to the Flamingo Revolution. Albania has seen powerful civic mobilizations before — including the 2013 protests against a proposal for Albania to host the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons, and the 2018 student protests, when thousands took to the streets over university fees and higher-education policy — but these have largely remained issue-specific rather than developing into a lasting civic movement. The Flamingo Revolution, though, has already broadened beyond the issue that first sparked it and remains active, with protests continuing in the capital. Alongside them, larger national demonstrations have drawn participants from across the country and from the diaspora. But for this mobilization to become a sustained civic and political movement, it would need to go beyond the immediate protests: continuing to organize campaigns, community meetings, political advocacy and public mobilization over months or years, and remaining active on issues of wider public interest. This would mean sustaining pressure not only over the Zvërnec and Sazan project or Rama himself, but also over future government projects and policies that could harm the environment, economy or society.
The Flamingo Revolution has introduced a new sense of momentum, but turning that momentum into lasting political change will require something more durable: a way to transform civic anger into a credible political alternative. Its supporters are confronting not only Rama, but a system consolidated over two decades that has repeatedly made political change difficult. To succeed, they need a political platform that offers the electorate an opportunity to vote for change. A Herculean task lies ahead of the protesters, but history has shown that meaningful change never arrives without courage, sacrifice and struggle.