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Paper flamingos and Albanian flags filled Tirana on Saturday as tens of thousands of Albanians from across Europe joined a protest against government corruption and Jared Kushner’s plans for a $4bn coastal resort.
The demonstration, among the largest in Albania in years, brought together families, football fans, nationalists and even a caravan of cars from London in a rare display of unity. Many called for both Prime Minister Edi Rama and opposition leader Sali Berisha to be jailed.
Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has put forward plans for a luxury development on Sazan, Albania’s only big island in the Adriatic, and a nearby coastal area beside a nature reserve that is home to flamingoes. The project has inspired a protest movement dubbed the Flamingo Revolution.
“What started as a reaction against corrupt developers has now grown into a movement,” said Ervin Kaciu, a sociologist at the Albanian Academy of Sciences. “It has synthesised everything that is wrong in Albania: political corruption, the power of oligarchs, police and mainstream media overlooking criminal acts. People now fight the whole regime.”
For three successive weeks, thousands have gathered in Tirana at night, with marches spreading to other towns around the country as well as 30 cities worldwide.
A long line of cars toured central Tirana as the caravan, which began in from London and was boosted by drivers on its way across Europe, arrived in the capital on Saturday afternoon. The vehiclesm draped in flags and hooting repeatedly, elicited loud cheers from passers-by.
“We are one nation united against the oligarchs and the political elite,” said Artur Bregu, a shopkeeper from northern Tirana who closed his business to join the protest. “I don’t know what we can achieve but if we stay quiet corruption will continue forever.”
By early evening tens of thousands of people had filled the main avenue outside the prime minister’s office, blowing whistles, horns and vuvuzelas.
The movement has tapped deep-seated frustration with the cosy relations between Albania’s political elite and a handful of rich families with outsized influence in the country. The protesters have also brandished American flags in an attempt to show they are not against the US but rather the way such foreign investment has been exploited.
“These people have held power in Tirana politics, the business world and the media for decades,” said Fatos Lubonja, a writer and longtime dissident who has clashed with Rama over graft accusations for decades.
“To them, international ties and deals are just another way to justify their hold on power.”
Rama has denounced the protesters as extremists and accused them of resisting a project that is in the interests of Albania. The premier has also accused foreign agents, including from Iran, of stoking unrest.
“Flamingoes should know they are misinformed by crows and ravens, who pretend to love the environment, like fig leaves, to incite a protest that has nothing to do with the environment,” Rama wrote on Facebook.
A common rallying cry for protesters is “Rama to prison, Berisha to prison”. Publicly, the politicians are bitter enemies and Berisha has endorsed the protests against Rama — but after decades in frontline politics the opposition leader is seen as equally culpable for the state of the country.
Further complicating the project, Albania’s special prosecution agency SPAK launched investigations into land deals connected to the investment following allegations of forged titles and other irregularities.
Rama has also come under scrutiny, including from the European parliament, for lifting environmental restrictions in the area to ease high-end tourism development of the kind the investors want to launch.
Rama has labelled the criticism as misguided, arguing the quality of the environment will improve as a result of the investment.
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