{"id":426269,"date":"2025-05-09T14:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T12:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/05\/09\/elezioni-albania-rama-berisha-ue\/"},"modified":"2025-05-09T15:21:25","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T13:21:25","slug":"albanian-elections-edi-rama-poised-for-fourth-term-against-a-revived-berisha-with-diaspora-vote-uncertainty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/05\/09\/albanian-elections-edi-rama-poised-for-fourth-term-against-a-revived-berisha-with-diaspora-vote-uncertainty\/","title":{"rendered":"Albanian elections: Edi Rama poised for fourth term against a revived Berisha with diaspora vote uncertainty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels -On the one hand, the promise of cleaning up the country of corruption and fast-track\u00a0entry into the European Union. On the other, a\u00a0Trump-inspired Make Albania Great Again. Albania will go to the polls\u00a0on Sunday, May 11. <\/strong>It will see\u00a0two well-known faces of national politics: the socialist premier Edi Rama<\/strong>, chasing a fourth term, and Sali Berisha<\/strong>, the first president elected after the collapse of the communist regime and leader of the center-right coalition. The only real game-changer is the first-time vote of the\u00a0extensive Albanian diaspora, which counts some\u00a0250,000 registered voters.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rama’s card to secure his fourth consecutive win\u00a0is the promise of EU membership by 2030<\/strong>. A prospect that over\u00a0four out of five citizens in Albania\u00a0support<\/a>, the highest of the Western Balkan countries.\u00a0 So much so that one of the hallmarks of Rama’s supporters is a white T-shirt with a large multicolored number 5 written on it,<\/strong> indicating the years until 2030. During his weekly rallies, Rama hoisted the twelve-star flags and said to his supporters in Pogradec, “We are at the gates of Europe, and those gates are now open for us.” In the past six months, Albania opened<\/a> 16 of the 35 negotiating chapters<\/strong> for membership in the EU bloc.<\/p>\n

\"Albania<\/a>
Edi Rama and European Council President Antonio Costa in Brussels on 14\/04\/2025<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to World Bank data, annual economic growth for 2022-2024 exceeded 4 percent, driven by trade with the EU<\/strong>, booming tourism, and significant hydropower production. On the other hand, low living standards and high unemployment continue to lead to\u00a0mass emigration<\/strong>: between 2011 and 2023, the Albanian population decreased by about 420,000.<\/p>\n

In this context full of contradictions, the Socialist Party is still the favorite and aims to reconfirm the majority of the 140 seats<\/strong> in the Tirana Parliament. Facing Rama — who, over the years, seems to have built an unchallenged personal power — are\u00a0the usual but weakened opponents<\/strong>: the Democratic Party, with which the Socialists have dominated the political landscape since the collapse of Enver Hoxha’s regime in the early 1990s. The Alliance for a Magnificent Albania — led by Democrats —\u00a0is\u00a0“the strongest coalition Albania has seen in 32 years,” according to\u00a0Sali Berisha, the 80-year-old former prime minister and leader of the main opposition party to\u00a0Rama.<\/p>\n

Socialists and Democrats, no one is immune from rampant corruption<\/h3>\n

The comeback of\u00a0Berisha\u00a0at the helm of the Democratic Party after three years of turmoil, during\u00a0which he was targeted by Joe Biden’s administration for alleged corruption, expelled from his parliamentary group, and placed under house arrest<\/strong> by the Albanian judiciary. His release revitalized the party’s base, but Berisha remains under investigation and subject to sanctions by both the United States and the United Kingdom<\/strong>, which definitely limits his international credibility.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>
Democratic Party leader, Sali Berisha, in\u00a0Tirana on 15\/5\/25 (Photo by Adnan Beci \/ AFP)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n

Berisha is betting everything on an Albanian-style revival of\u00a0Trump’s MAGA movement. He has hired as a campaign consultant Chris LaCivita,\u00a0one of the masterminds of Trump’s last presidential campaign<\/strong>, and has adopted the slogans that are typical in\u00a0the universe of the sovereignist right: the war on\u00a0woke and Soros and accusations against the politicized judiciary that tried to remove him. His main ally, former president and leader of the Freedom Party,\u00a0Ilir Meta<\/strong>, is currently in detention, arrested last October on charges of corruption and money laundering.<\/p>\n

Even Rama is not immune to the country’s endemic corruption. During\u00a0his twelve years in power, several scandals touched the premier and affected members of his governments<\/strong> and the Socialist Party. Most recently, the case of some illegally awarded six-figure contracts for the construction of incinerators, for which – following investigations by SPAK, the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office established in 2019 – former Environment Minister Lefter Koka was jailed<\/strong> and Rama’s former deputy, Arben Ahmetaj, was indicted and left the country (he now resides in Switzerland).<\/p>\n

In five years of operation, the SPAK has seized\u00a0200 million euros in corruption<\/strong> and organized crime cases, and several media reports<\/a>\u00a0and international organizations have highlighted the ambiguities and murky connections between the Albanian political establishment and criminal networks<\/strong> involved in drug trafficking and money laundering. A study published last month by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime<\/a> shed light on the role of the Albanian Mafia in the global cocaine trade, particularly through the port of Durres, made possible by corruption within Albania’s political, police, and judicial institutions.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

The unknowns: the diaspora and the new anti-corruption parties<\/h3>\n

It is unclear what impact these events will have on\u00a0elections, in which, for the first time,\u00a0some 250,000 registered voters from the Albanian diaspora will take part<\/strong>. The impression is that, without a viable alternative, Rama should score his fourth consecutive win. However,\u00a0should the Socialist Party fail to reach the 71 seats needed to govern alone (it currently has 76), Rama’s fast-track EU accession could be compromised.<\/p>\n

In the seat count, new political groups that entered the race to give an alternative to the two establishment parties — widely perceived as too corrupt — <\/strong>could\u00a0<\/strong>play a role. Levizja Bashke (Together Movement), a left-wing party founded in 2022 with roots in civic activism, Shqiperia behet (Making Albania) and Nisma Thurje (Initiative), two centrist anti-corruption parties running on a united list, and Mundesia (The Opportunity), led by Agron Shehaj, an entrepreneur and former Democratic Party MP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday, May 11, elections will be held to renew Tirana’s parliament and choose a new government. The Socialist premier, in office for 12 years, is betting everything on fast-track EU accession. He faces a coalition led by the former president that is subject to US sanctions. They share more or less clear links to rampant corruption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":426229,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681,25707],"tags":[25816,28103,26891,31190],"class_list":["post-426269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-world-politics","tag-albania-in-2","tag-edi-rama-en","tag-sali-berisha-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426269"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":426304,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426269\/revisions\/426304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}