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Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Prime Minister Edi Rama's exploits with "Diella", the virtual artificial intelligence minister for public procurement, continue to make headlines in foreign media. According to an article in "El País", while the government sees artificial intelligence as an instrument of modernization and transparency, critics warn that no algorithm can replace political will and the strengthening of institutions in the fight against corruption...
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama knows how to draw attention to his country. The former national basketball player (1.98 m tall) introduced Diella, a virtual minister responsible for public procurement, in September last year.
The leader of the Socialist Party, in power for more than 12 years and now in his fourth term, won the 2025 elections by promising Albania's full membership in the EU by 2030. To achieve this objective, the fight against corruption remains essential, one of Brussels' main demands on the country of 2.3 million inhabitants, which officially launched membership negotiations four years ago.
Introducing the initiative, Rama explained: “ We are not delegating to [Diella] the responsibility to govern or to make final decisions. We are giving it the responsibility to do what it does best: to process data quickly and give us very quick answers […] Public tenders will be 100% corruption-free .”
The opposition reacted by asking: “ Who will the police arrest if this minister makes a mistake or facilitates a fraud? The programmer? ” Diella, whose name means “Sun” in Albanian, responded to the criticism via a screen in parliament: “ Unlike people, I have no relatives to favor, no friends to give contracts to, and no emotions to cloud my judgment on public data. My loyalty is mathematical .”
Rama, 61, argued: “ Technology has no friends, no coffee, and no fear of retaliation .” He championed the idea that the algorithm would overcome the country’s “structural nepotism.” “We are a country of cousins — it’s not easy to have completely fair and transparent interactions in a country of cousins,” he declared in an interview with The New York Times in January.
Diella's appointment was widely covered by international media. However, many Albanians expressed distrust. Among them was Jorida Tabaku, a Democratic Party MP and chair of the European Affairs Committee. “ If the system that uses these tools lacks integrity, artificial intelligence risks turning into a ‘black box’ that concentrates power instead of detecting abuses ,” she declared.
Just two months after Diella's appointment, the Special Prosecution Office against Corruption and Organized Crime (SPAK) requested the suspension of Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku, accusing her of “violation of equality in public tenders.” The case ended up in the Constitutional Court, which dismissed her from office on February 6. Rama criticized the decision and refused to open the way for the lifting of her parliamentary immunity.
Skepticism about artificial intelligence deepened when SPAK placed the leaders of the National Agency for the Information Society (AKSHI), including director Mirlinda Karçanaj and her deputy Hava Delibashi, under house arrest, and charged several others with corruption. The charges include rigging tenders and pressuring a technology entrepreneur to withdraw from a public competition.
On January 24, several opposition parties called for protests, including incidents in front of the prime minister's office. Demonstrations continued on February 10 and 11, with demands for Rama's resignation. Meanwhile, actress Anila Bisha, whose image and voice were used to create the Diella avatar, sued the government for unauthorized use of her image.
Gazment Bardhi, the leader of the Democratic Party parliamentary group, called the virtual minister “pure propaganda,” noting that the people who created it are under investigation for corruption. “ In a corrupt government, no algorithm solves the problem ,” he declared.
Independent experts say the impact of artificial intelligence in the fight against corruption remains unclear. Andi Hoxhaj, a law professor at King's College London, notes that it is still too early to assess the effectiveness of Diella. Rovena Sulstarova of the Institute for Democracy and Mediation says that AI can increase transparency, but is not a solution in itself.
Writer and intellectual Fatos Lubonja, who spent 17 years in prison during the communist dictatorship, expresses deep skepticism about the government. He argues that Rama's power rests on four pillars: oligarchs, the media connected to them, organized crime, and international support. According to him, Albania's relationship with international power centers has historically functioned on the basis of external legitimacy and tolerance of internal problems.
" One is the oligarchs, all the rich people who surround him. One is the media that they own or finance. The third is organized crime. And the fourth is international support, especially from Western Europe and the US ," he says.
Ultimately, the cleansing of the high levels will depend on human will. Lubonja concludes: “ I do not believe that SPAK alone can change the country. You cannot reform the justice system alone when politics, the economy and organized crime are all moving in the opposite direction. And Rama is not acting in good faith .” / Adapted from "Pamphlet" by "El Pais"
AI was invented only to grab more and more from people and the Bankers, oligarchs, politicians to cover their dirty tricks and to make guilty AI for the "mistakes".