Making sense of the Flamingo Revolution in Albania

The spark at Zvërnec

"Ivanka go home" and "Rama resign" were some of the chants heard at protests in Tirana, much as in other European cities such as Berlin, Rome, London, Cologne and Paris. Named “The Flamingo Revolution”, the protest movement has shocked the Albanian political system like never before. Not only is it against an investment project run by Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his Qatari business partners, it has also brought thousands of Albanians out to protest against Prime Minister Rama and demand his resignation. It is the toughest moment in Edi Rama’s 13 years of premiership and over 25 years in politics.

Rama and the Socialist Party struggle to understand why an Albanian who left the country due to their poor governance would come back just to protest, let alone care about protecting the flamingos. What they forget is that the Arab Spring, which reshaped the political landscape of the Arab world and brought down four autocrats — Gaddafi, Mubarak, Ben Ali and Assad — was inspired by the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi. No one had heard of this Tunisian street vendor until his one-man protest. At times something seemingly small needs to happen to awaken people. The Albanian equivalent of this “Bouazizi moment” was not as dramatic. After Albanians saw a farmer being dragged from his land in Zvërnec by masked men while the police stood idly by, they decided that they have had enough of the Rama system.

 

Development plans, corruption and protest

 

The Flamingo movement is as much against the Kushner project as it is opposed to the political establishment. The investment deal between Kushner and Rama is less about the property development and more about gaining favour with the White House. Media reports of Kushner's interest in the Albanian coastline dates back to 2021, but no moves had been made. It was only after Trump won the November 2024 election that this shady deal could become possible.

 

In 2024, Rama passed a law removing environmental safeguards concerning including for both Zvërnec and Sazan. These places were on the list of protected areas due to their natural habitats, which include flamingos. The law was changed in the hope of attracting investment; in practice, it has simply granted construction permits for oligarchs, so that they could build in protected areas or near the coastline.

What is so special in Zvërnec and Sazan? Zvërnec is a protected nature reserve and wetland with a sandy, crystal-clear beach next to the Vjosa Delta, the last wild river in Europe. An old monastery stands on its bank. Sazan is the only sizeable island in Albania and is located at the entrance to the Adriatic Sea, right by the Otranto Channel. It is a pristine island, having only been used as a naval base during the communist era.

In April 2026, international media outlets reported on clean-up and construction activities in the woods in Zvërnec. Local media barely covered the story, mainly due to government pressure. Although Albanian media is generally free to report, the practice of self-censorship is well known, especially when it involves oligarchs or individuals with political connections. On May 26th, Zvërnec locals found barbed wire surrounding the beach and large construction machinery in the area. Locals, who claim to own property in the area, went there to protest against the construction work. The government claimed there was no project, but many Albanians saw this as a lie, as an interview with Ivanka Trump was released on the same day. She claimed that she would soon have her own private island in the Adriatic Sea referring to Sazan. She explained this by using neo-colonial language, saying that the Trumps were discovering the area and that their arrival would bring progress.

The decision to give the land to the Kushner company was made without a single public hearing from the government, the local municipality or the company itself. The only information available is Rama's claim that the investment was worth four billion euros. On May 26th, a group of around 200 local people who went to protest were confronted by a line of police officers, who prevented them from entering their properties or the public beach. Meanwhile, a private security firm quickly escalated the situation by beating protesters, dragging them away and deploying pepper spray. Thanks to social media, everyone was able to watch the situation unfold live, and was shocked by the state police standing by and doing nothing while the security firm beat the protesters.

Citizens take to the streets

Up until May 30th, the government's response was minimal, as they believed that the situation would calm down if they arrested a few private security guards and dismissed the local state police director, who seem to justify that “the protesters deserved to be beaten.” It was on that day that the first large-scale demonstration took place in Tirana, followed by large-scale demonstrations in every major city in Western Europe that were led by the diaspora. The protests soon intensified, with protesters calling for Rama to resign. The prime minister tried every possible way to crush the protests. First, he claimed that only a few people wanted to cause trouble in the capital. Following this, he claimed that the protests were organized by Greeks jealous of the four-billion-euro project. He then claimed that Serbian spy agencies were involved. This was despite the fact that he and the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, had a good relationship.

Seeing that the protesters were not backing down, Rama claimed that Iran was using the internet to stir up trouble in the region. He later claimed that a hybrid war had been launched against him by dozens of anti-Albanian actors. Rama even went as far as to claim that the protesters were antisemitic because of Kushner's Jewish background. This could not be further from the truth. Rama or a high-ranking member of his party had called the protesters, who were mainly young people and students, a variety of insults – Nazis, stupid, idiots, manipulated people, paid anarchists, communists, opponents of development, backward, homophobic and xenophobic. Some of these terms are inconsistent with one another — as is obvious. This shows that neither Rama nor anyone in his party was prepared for this kind of protest.

During his thirteen years in power, Rama regularly faced protests from the Democratic Party that did not make headlines anywhere. However, the current protest was not organized by the Democrats, who actually reject the demonstrators' cause. Unprepared for the situation, Rama deployed the classic tool of autocrats, using police to disperse the protesters with water cannons. This was followed by the issuing of arrest warrants for some of the most prominent figures in the protest movement. He then used almost the entire media, which either bowed to political pressure or is funded by him, to brand the protesters as traitors and claim that they were against the interests of Albania. To this day, none of these actions have seemed to make the demonstrators back down.

What Rama could not dictate was the international attention that the protests received. Although he had the power to censor or restrain the Albanian media coverage, he was powerless to do the same to the New York Times, the BBC, DW, Al Jazeera and the Washington Post, all of which reported regularly on the protests. Reuters and CNN featured live coverage, putting further pressure on Rama, who was forced to go on the offensive by giving an interview to CNN. In his interview with the news anchor Isa Suares, rather than answering questions, he reiterated some of the accusations that protesters were ignorant and then went on to direct furious insults toward Suares. Rama had invested so much time and resources in presenting himself as a true European from the Balkans. The protests revealed another Rama, one that every Albanian knows: corrupt, autocratic and anti-democratic. In other words, the world is realizing that the soft-spoken Rama is nothing more than an autocrat who governs his country in a similar manner to other autocrats of our times.

The missing voice of the opposition

Albania has a highly polarized political landscape, with the two main parties — the Socialists and the Democrats — often viewing each other as enemies. However, this time the Democrats are rather mute. Awkwardly, the protests brought the two sides together. The Democrats had supported the government's decision to lease Zvërnec and Sazan island to the Trump family, as the leader of the Democrats, Sali Berisha, had recently been trying to get his entry ban to the US lifted. He had been placed on a list by the Biden administration due to corruption, state capture, and undemocratic activities during his time in power.

In other words, Berisha was trying to please Trump in the hope that his ban would be lifted, a humiliating experience for him given that he had faced prosecution charges in Albania on those exact grounds.

What story does the protest tell

First and foremost, this is a protest by young Albanians who are tired of oligarchs, the mafia and corrupt politicians taking over public spaces and going unpunished. Albania is probably the only Mediterranean country where less than five per cent of beaches are accessible to the public. Most are occupied by the private sector, which pays relatively little tax but bribes state officials. Meanwhile, people in need have to pay a minimum daily fee of ten euros up to fifty euros to get beach access. Secondly, it is a protest against a development project from which the local population would not benefit much. Before Kushner's project, there were four others, one of which was pursued by one of the wealthiest Albanians, Zamir Mane, had been reported of receiving government funding going into a private investment. What things do these projects have in common? These projects are environmentally disastrous and have done little for the economy. The same applies to other resorts near the UNESCO Protected Area of Butrint. In short, these large-scale tourist projects bring close to no benefits for the local population and have a significant environmental impact, destroying land, sea and rivers while blocking people's access to the beach.

Thirdly, this is an anti-establishment protest because neither the Socialists nor the Democrats represent the interests of the people anymore, in the eyes of the protesters. The leadership of both parties consists of yes-men. The political system has become toxic and this is because Rama takes decisions personally, bypassing every institution and organ of state on the grounds that he knows better. Similar method of governing had been applied also by the Democrats under Berisha.

It is unlikely that Rama will resign, and even if he calls for early elections, he might end up the winner. The electoral system in Albania favours the ruling party. Rama's unofficial patronazhist system (a profiling and surveillance mechanism operated by the Rama party involving vote coercion, surveillance, intimidation and threats, usually carried out by state employees) also makes it harder for any new party to win. The protests have revealed Rama to be corrupt, autocratic and anti-democratic, while the protesters have shown the world that Rama is ready to make use of methods deployed by autocrats. However, it may take more than daily protests by thousands of Albanians to dismantle a system that has been in place since 1991, and which at its heart is designed to maintain state capture.

The path forward

While the demonstration showed unity, civility and discipline, these qualities must be translated into political action by establishing a genuine movement. The government, the police, the oligarchs, and the majority of the media are all against the demonstration. This is similar to the Serbian student protests. The EU Commission especially the Enlargement has also remained silent. The EU Parliament adopted a resolution to halt the further construction in the protected area.

Rama will probably survive; he has promised to conduct an environmental review of the area, which is unlikely to reveal any environmental issues. However, as in Belgrade, Kushner knows that he cannot invest in a country where people are protesting en masse in the streets, and he may withdraw from his investment. This will not solve the Albanian problem. The corruption, the mafia-run state and state capture will continue as long as there is no political solution, while the EU and other European capitals remain silent, or even agree at arm’s length with Rama that it is the protesters, not the prime minister, that are corrupt.

Dr. des. Rigels Lenja is a journalist, columnist and historian. He holds a BA/MSc degree in East and South-East European Modern History from the University of Tirana. In 2024, he defended his PhD thesis at the University of Munich’s Institute for East and South-East Europe. His research has focused on dictatorship, modern warfare, democracy and modern religion in the Balkan countries.