Albania has the chance to continue the journey that Serbia is making with the student movement and to repeat the form of power or to combine the energies of all – the Government, SPAK, the EU, the Flamingo Movement – towards another goal
1.
“Vuçiqi fell, now it’s Rama’s turn” was heard in the Tirana protests and was one of the indicators of how the ease of analogies can deceive.
The president of Serbia actually announced his resignation from the post of president and his readiness to run for prime minister in the parliamentary elections to be held next year. Thus, President Vučić resigned from power just as President Putin resigned from power to become Prime Minister in 2012.
The “fall” of Vucic in 2026 could find him well and good in power for as many terms of power as he needs. And with this, the president of Serbia has shown that the popular protest, supported by all layers of society and self-considered as one with a “right cause” will not necessarily bring down a government that is widely perceived as unjust.
The government in Serbia considered the student movement to be the main existential challenge to it and was ready to respond in two essential ways in which the protest would bring it down. When there were enough people on the streets of Belgrade to show the paralysis of the authorities against the protesters, the “sonic cannon”, a Russian sonic weapon that hits the protesters’ senses with ultrasound, was used. Determined to coexist with the protest, counting on the fatigue of the movement and the challenges for maintaining cohesion, the government is moving the resolution of the conflict to the point that suits them, the parliamentary elections within the current systemic and functional conditions. And within that system – where public money is misused for elections, the media is under control and the difference between the violence of the police and the criminal in the service of power is almost invisible – the power is likely to continue.
According to the latest Faktor Plus survey, if the elections were held last week, Vučić’s SNS party would have won 47.1 percent of the votes and together with the Socialists would have over 50 percent. The second strongest political force in the election would be the Student List with 30.7 percent of the votes.
2.
Be careful with analogies.
The powers in Serbia and Albania may appear to be autocracies produced by (not so) democratic elections, but they have essential differences. Today’s power in Serbia is built on the still unconsumed wave of hatred produced by the wars of dissolution of the former Yugoslavia and the central role that Serbia and Serbian nationalism played in it. Today’s government in Albania has no similarities at all; Prime Minister Rama was a cosmopolitan during the dissolution of former Yugoslavia, and his nationalist excursions towards Kosovo or North Macedonia in the last years of power may be more a product of regional protagonism than a late awakening of convictions. Autocracy in Albania is a rare global product that is conceived with the cooperation of power, organized criminal groups, international narco-trafficking, “oligarchs” and the media.
Consequently, in Serbia’s political culture it is expected to bring out “sonic cannons” and criminals with baseball bats to beat protesting old men, women and children. In the political culture of Albania, and Prime Minister Rama also contributed to this, it is not expected to beat people with flamingo dolls in their hands or with banners against the government, even with extreme messages such as “death to traitors”.
Moreover, the analogy is not valid even in the developmental capacity of protests. Serbia will complete two years of protests, Albania completed one month. At the height of the protest, if nothing changes by the end of this year, Serbia will have managed to go to parliamentary elections, under the same unfair conditions as before, but with greater legitimacy for a new opposition movement, led by students. Albania is only at the beginning of its protest movement and unlike the Serbian one, in the first month it has already made it clear that its end will not be participation in the elections under the same conditions as the previous ones.
3.
So, no, Vuçiqi did not fall and, by analogy, there is no reason for Prime Minister Rama to fall either.
The Prime Minister of Albania has at his disposal both ways of confronting the protest, which, unlike that of Serbia, is still in the initial phase and has challenges ahead. Asgjëmangut, has the path of coexistence with the protest in the hope that it will somehow fade or turn into a ritual tourist attraction. And there is the path of confrontation in parliamentary elections, in case the movement increases its political potential. In both ways forward, the protesters and the prime minister bet that there will be erosion of the opponent; that the protesters will not achieve any representational cohesion or that the prime minister will remain increasingly isolated at the top of the power concentrated mainly in his hands.
Both paths, despite the essential differences between Albania and Serbia, lead to a conclusion intended by their prime ministers, sealing with formal electoral democracy, the undemocratic exercise of power.
4.
However, the future of Albania will have a different journey from Serbia.
Unlike Serbia, Albania is authentically oriented towards the EU; its population, political parties, Government, civil society. Furthermore, as proof of its commitment, there is SPAK, an institution setting the example of the rule of law.
Was this supposed to be enough for Albania not to continue the path of Serbia? No.
The definition of power in favor of European reforms showed that the country is ready to make all the legal changes required by the EU, and the prime minister even suggested that this work should not be handled by political actors or the administration, but that it should be done with the help of artificial intelligence, so that more or less the Assembly would formally approve the translations of European laws that would be made by Chatgpt.
This is where the discrepancy is illustrated, where European reforms become form and not content. Albania of today’s government wants in an authentic form to adopt laws in accordance with the requirements of the EU and in an authentic form to keep the current model of the country’s development in which there is a lack of democratic transparency, while the money that comes from drug trafficking and the political and social influence that comes with it is in line with exemplary citizenship.
Holding two beliefs that contradict each other is called cognitive dissonance, and this is a problem of power. But this is also the problem of the EU, because it is true that Albania is completely directed by the EU, but in its current state it is also directed that its economic development model relies on large infusions of money from illegal sources. This is not an exception to the rule of law that SPAK must deal with, this is already the rule.
SPAK cannot replace the opposition nor be the idealized revolutionary sword that will cut the head and bring justice. The Flamingo Revolution cannot replace the Parliament of Albania. The EU cannot replace the Government of Albania. The Government of Albania could not replace the people and their sovereignty.
The wisdom is now how to use the European will of the Government, the will of the EU towards Albania, the will of SPAK to fight corruption and organized crime and the will of the protesters of the Flamingo Movement to return decision-making to the citizen – how to use all this energy towards a common goal, so that Albania’s path is completely different from what it is today.
