Understanding Albania’s Flamingo Revolution
First published at Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung.
Over the past week, citizens across Albania have taken to the streets in mass protests against the government. Unlike previous waves of mobilization since the collapse of the socialist dictatorship in 1991, these protests target both the governing majority and the mainstream opposition, reflecting a deep crisis of political representation and a widening challenge to the socio-economic model that has shaped Albania over the past three decades.
The immediate trigger for the protests was the approval of luxury tourism developments on Sazan Island, belonging to the Karaburun–Sazan National Marine Park, and in the Narta Lagoon, including the Pishë-Poro beach in Zvërnec, which forms part of the Vjosa–Narta Protected Landscape. The area constitutes a critical ecosystem in the Mediterranean, serving as a crucial stopover site for migratory birds moving between Europe and Africa. It also supports extraordinary biodiversity, providing habitat for more than 200 species, such and emblematic wildlife like the loggerhead turtle, the Mediterranean monk seal, and the Albanian water frog, as well as pelicans and the flamingos that have become the emblem of the movement.
In 2004, the Albanian government granted the Vjosa–Narta region Protected Landscape status, a designation that was further reinforced by the 2017 Law on Protected Areas. The law was subsequently amended in 2024, weakening long-standing restrictions on construction within these zones and raising concerns that conservation objectives were being subordinated to private interests. In the same year, U.S. media reported on plans by Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, to develop a luxury tourism project in the area, which includes a $1.4 billion resort on Sazan Island and a $4.7 billion development in Zvërnec, close to the coastal city of Vlorë.
The project, known as Zvërnec South Adriatic Development, is being advanced by Atlantic Incubation Partners, a company linked to Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners fund. The Albanian government has granted Atlantic Incubation Partners “Strategic Investor Status”, allowing it to benefit from accelerated approval procedures and other special provisions under Albania’s strategic investment framework. While Atlantic Incubation Partners acts as the strategic investor, the resort is being developed through a separate project company — Zvërnec South Adriatic Development — which is registered offshore through a trust structure in the Netherlands, while its ultimate beneficial owners remain undisclosed.
Moreover, an investigation by the Balkans Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), found a controversial tangle of local businesses and political interests behind the presidential American family, including individuals linked to organized crime allegations, judicial misconduct, and one of Albania’s most powerful oligarchs, Shefqet Kastrati.
What sparked the protests?
Although Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has insisted that the project does not yet exist, preparatory work has already been underway, in violation of legal and regulatory requirements. In recent days, it came to light that the government had officially granted approval for the construction of the project in January 2025, doing so through a non-transparent decision-making process that largely escaped public scrutiny.
Protests initially began in Zvërnec on 23 May. From the beginning they addressed issues that went beyond environmental concerns. Local residents and activists alike condemned the intervention in a protected area, arguing in particular that it amounted to land grabbing that would benefit foreign billionaires, politically connected oligarchs, and the political establishment that had enabled the project.
On 30 May, as citizens once again gathered peacefully in Zvërnec, they were attacked by Kastrati’s private security guards, who also detained one of the demonstrators, while state police refused to intervene. For many, this episode became further evidence of the government’s complicity in a suspicious project and the state’s failure to protect the livelihoods of its citizens. It reinforced a growing sense that the state no longer serves the public, but rather powerful private and political interests. This perception became a catalyst for a broader wave of mobilization, transforming what had begun as a local environmental struggle into a nationwide protest movement. Feeling betrayed and abandoned by public institutions, citizens increasingly turned to one another in solidarity, building new forms of collective organization and resistance.
Within 24 hours, the movement grew enormously under the slogan “Albania is not for sale,”, quickly spreading to other Albanian cities, including Durrës, Vlorë, Elbasan, Korçë, and Shkodër, as well as to Albanian communities abroad. Since then, demonstrations continue to be organized across the diaspora as well, from Europe and North America to other parts of the world where Albanian communities reside.
A second episode of violence that followed on 3 June, this time at the hands of the state, further amplified the movement. Police blocked access routes in the capital Tirana, including the main boulevard leading to the Prime Minister’s Office where daily demonstrations are being held, citing security measures related to a football match between Albania and Israel. Subsequently they deployed water cannons against peaceful demonstrators, including parents with young children. Far from suppressing the movement, the crackdown galvanized public outrage and brought even larger crowds into the streets the following day.
As public pressure mounted and questions surrounding the legality of the development attracted growing national and international attention, state institutions came under increasing pressure to respond. In such a situation, Albania’s Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK) announced the launch of an investigation into the Kushner-Trump-backed project, focusing in part on the controversial 2024 amendments to the Law on Protected Areas.
Who is leading the protests?
Despite coming from diverse social, political, and ideological backgrounds, Albanians both at home and abroad have demonstrated a remarkable capacity to set aside their differences and unite around a common cause: the defense of democracy, the public interest, and the country’s natural heritage. The movement has brought together an unusually broad coalition, including left-wing organizations, members of the LGBTQ+ community, environmental activists, representatives of all four religious communities, feminist collectives, and even conservatives, nationalists, and right-leaning individuals.
Apart from three small and recently established political parties, which emerged from earlier civic engagements, including the radical-left Together Movement (Lëvizja Bashkë) the protesters have categorically rejected the involvement of the mainstream opposition. The Democratic Party of Albania (DP), led by Sali Berisha, in particular is seen as responsible for laying the political and economic foundations of the system they are now contesting.
Moreover, the DP has effectively aligned itself with the government on the developments in Sazan Island and the Vjosë–Narta area, actively defending the projects rather than opposing them, largely because of the involvement of members of the Trump family. In recent years, Berisha has sought to preserve his political relevance through the adoption of Trump-style rhetoric and a closer alignment with the European far-right.
For many citizens, the convergence of the government and the opposition on this issue has reinforced the perception that Albania’s two dominant political camps are ultimately united in their support for the same political and economic model. As a result, people have taken to the streets calling for revolution and demanding that both Rama and Berisha be held accountable. Protesters want Rama out of office and are calling for the government to step down.
At the same time, they are demanding the legal framework governing “strategic investors” be repealed; the withdrawal of the government’s so-called “Mountains Package,” which critics argue facilitates the transfer of public land to private investors with limited transparency and inadequate environmental safeguards; the reversal of recent amendments to the Law on Protected Areas; and repealing the amendments to the Law on Cultural Heritage.
This rejection of the established political class has also shaped the organizational character of the protests. The movement remains leaderless. Rather than being organized around a central figure or formal leadership structure, it has developed as a largely horizontal and participatory mobilization, with decisions emerging collectively through daily assemblies on the boulevards. This loose organizational structure has posed a challenge to the regime’s attempts to diminish or co-opt the protests. .
All of this is unfolding within a remarkably creative and peaceful environment. In the aftermath of the violent dispersal of protesters by police on 3 June, protesters returned to the streets carrying white roses, which they offered to police officers while urging them to switch sides.
This commitment to non-violence has further shaped the protest ground with demonstrators transforming Tirana’s main boulevard, as well as streets across the country, into spaces of civic participation and collective solidarity. Within the demonstrations, they have created areas where children can draw and play; young people help elderly participants move through the crowds and offer support to those in need; and each night, after the protest, they clean the streets before leaving.
The movement’s emphasis on solidarity has also resonated beyond the demonstrations themselves. Marathon swimmer Eva Buzo undertook a symbolic 20-kilometre swim from Sazan Island to the Narta Lagoon in support of the campaign to protect the area.
Government response and media narratives
Caught off guard by the rapid expansion of the protests and increasingly unable to control the narrative, particularly as the movement has attracted an unprecedented level of international media coverage, Rama has sought to shift the focus of the debate. After initially attempting to suppress the demonstrations through police intervention, he has increasingly sought to delegitimize them politically, portraying the protests as externally orchestrated, invoking “hybrid warfare,” and referring to unspecified actors allegedly working against Albania.
At the same time, members of the Socialist Party (SP) have sought to bolster these claims through appeals to nationalism and accusations of foreign interference. Taulant Balla, a senior SP figure, posted a picture on his account on Facebook of a car bearing Belgrade license plates during the protest in Zvërnec last weekend, suggesting that Serbian interests were involved in organizing the demonstrations. The vehicle, however, belonged to Reuters journalists who had travelled to Albania to report on the protests. Earlier, government-affiliated voices had similarly sought to link the protests to Greece.
Iran has emerged as the latest alleged foreign actor behind the demonstrations. On Monday, the spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry dismissed these allegations as unfounded. Rama has also claimed that the protests are damaging tourism, yet tourists in Albania are not only showing support for the demonstrations but are as well joining them in solidarity.
Still, pro-government media outlets in Albania have actively promoted these stories and are also participating in smear campaigns targeting individual activists and protesters, including members of the diaspora. Media outlets aligned with the opposition and members of the DP have also contributed to the spread of disinformation and efforts to discredit the movement. As a result, the protests have become the subject of competing political narratives that often distract from their actual demands.
Among the most persistent claims has been the attempt to associate the developments on Sazan Island and in the Narta Lagoon with Israel. Referencing Jared Kushner’s Jewish background, actors from across Albania’s mainstream political spectrum have sought to portray the movement as motivated by antisemitism, thereby undermining its legitimacy in the eyes of international audiences. Rama himself contributed to this narrative in the early stages of the mobilization by attributing the protests, in part, to what he characterized as “Muslims” who had “strayed from the path of God”. He later rejected claims that Israel was involved in the project, yet he did not publicly retract his earlier remarks regarding members of the Muslim community.
The movement has little to do with Kushner’s ethnicity or religion. Rather, protesters are mobilizing against what they perceive as the privatization of protected public land for the benefit of foreign billionaires and politically connected business interests. This extends far beyond a single tourism project as it reflects a wider process through which public goods and natural resources are increasingly transformed into opportunities for private accumulation, facilitated by a state that appears more responsive to investors than to citizens.
Similar protests have emerged in various parts of Albania, although they have generally remained more localized and have attracted far less public attention. Such is the case in the northern coastal area of Rrjoll where local inhabitants confronted police and called for construction works on a government-designated “strategic investment project” to be halted, arguing that land had been appropriated on the basis of allegedly forged ownership documents. A similar pattern unfolded in Theth, a village in the northern Albanian Alps, where residents who had long been promised legalization measures and assistance for family-run tourism businesses instead faced demolitions carried out under police supervision.
In the capital Tirana residents have witnessed a profound and often irreversible transformation of the urban landscape. Critics argue that the current construction boom has created opportunities for money laundering through the real estate sector, while large-scale development projects have increasingly restricted public access to areas of historical and cultural significance, contributing to a growing sense of exclusion among citizens.
The “Flamingo Revolution”
Following the collapse of state socialism, Albania went through a radical neoliberal transformation under conditions that facilitated the emergence of a new socio-economic elite, whose accumulation of wealth was often connected to corruption and organized crime.
The rapid privatization of the 1990s, through which public assets were transferred into private hands, often under suspicious and highly controversial circumstances, depended heavily political power to access state resources, concessions, licenses, and legal protections. At the same time, the emergence of the first organized crime groups created new centers of economic power that would later evolve into influential business and oligarchic networks. The relationship became mutually reinforcing as political elites facilitated the accumulation of private wealth, while these emerging economic actors supplied the financial resources and informal networks that helped political parties consolidate and reproduce their power, creating a system in which distinguishing between political authority and private interest grew increasingly difficult.
To sustain this model, the ruling elites of the past 35 years have relied on governance mechanisms that limit democratic accountability, strengthening authoritarian practices as a means of managing the social and political contradictions generated by an increasingly unequal system of wealth accumulation. The weakening of environmental protections, the Strategic Investor framework, police violence against protesters, smear campaigns against activists, concentration of media power, and attempts to delegitimize dissent as “foreign interference” are not isolated phenomena. They are mechanisms through which the state protects and reproduces a political-economic order that operates to the detriment of the majority of society.
Albanians have directly experienced the consequences of this model: mass unemployment, economic insecurity, large-scale emigration, and the daily struggle to make ends meet in a system that has stripped them of basic rights and freedoms and, until recently, also robbed them of the capacity to imagine a different reality. Even if the current protests do not achieve the outcomes they seek in the near future, they have already accomplished something extraordinary: citizens have overcome their fear and found the courage not only to identify the roots of the problem, but also to envision a different world. In recent days, the movement’s slogan has changed from “Albania Is Not for Sale” to “New Albania.” Not yet a strategy, but a collective ambition nevertheless.
What comes next?
The chances of Rama resigning remain relatively low at the moment. Beyond the fact that he has repeatedly rejected the idea of stepping down, the protests would likely need to develop into a broader popular uprising for the government to fall. If that were to happen, a technical government could potentially be negotiated to oversee new elections. Yet such a scenario would present its own challenges as the movement remains leaderless, and the few recently established political parties that support it are small, lack significant resources, and hold opposing ideological positions. Their approaches to politics also differ significantly. While the Together Movement tends to adopt a more grassroots and uncompromising stance, center-right parties such as Albania Becomes (Shqipëria Bëhet) and Opportunity (Mundësia) generally favor a more pragmatic approach and have shown a greater willingness to engage and compromise with established political actors. Thus, the prospect of a broad coalition among them is uncertain.
Even in a best-case scenario, in which parliament were dissolved and a coalition emerging from the movement managed to form, the Albanian Constitution would require parliamentary elections to be held within 45 days. This would leave very little time for new political forces to organize, build electoral structures, and prepare for a national campaign. The ruling SP would still retain considerable structural advantages, including control over state institutions, extensive patronage networks, significant financial resources, and substantial influence over much of the media landscape, all of which have historically been deployed to its advantage during electoral campaigns.
Moreover, Rama continues to enjoy considerable international backing, particularly from the EU. Although a spokesperson for the European Commission recently stated that the Albanian government should address protesters’ concerns regarding environmental protection as part of its obligations under the EU acquis, there is little indication that the EU would distance itself from Rama in the near future. This is particularly the case given the absence of a clearly identifiable alternative political force capable of assuming power.
Yet these developments should not be viewed solely through the lens of immediate political change. The significance of the movement may lie less in its ability to bring down the government in the short term than in its potential to reshape Albania’s political landscape over the longer term. The emerging political parties associated with the protests have the chance to be able to capitalize on the momentum generated by the mobilization, expand their social base, and gradually build organizational capacity. Under current conditions, the most realistic outcome may not be the immediate replacement of the government, but the eventual displacement of the existing mainstream opposition and the emergence of a new political alternative that is more closely aligned with the concerns and aspirations of ordinary citizens.
Gresa Hasa is a doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Law and the Center for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz and a 2026 BiEPAG Fellow. Her academic work and regional expertise focus on the Western Balkans.
