FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Hiring Donald Trump's campaign strategist and thinking you can become like Trump "is like hiring a Hollywood hairdresser and thinking you're going to become Brad Pitt"...
Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama secured a comfortable majority in the May 11 parliamentary elections, becoming the leader with the most terms as Prime Minister in 35 years.
“It’s the most humbling experience of my life — and it comes at a historic moment for Albania… as a future member state of the European Union,” Rama told Politico, who made the promise of EU membership by 2030 a key aspect of his campaign.
The Socialist Party appears to have secured an overwhelming majority of around 82 seats — far more than the 71 needed to govern alone in Albania's 140-seat parliament.
Although Albania has a multi-party system, power has in fact alternated between two main forces — the Socialists and the center-right Democratic Party — since the fall of communism in the early 1990s.
The fact that the Democrats had hired Chris LaCivita, a Republican campaign maestro who orchestrated Donald Trump's comeback victory in the 2024 US elections, did not seem to bother Rama.
"Hiring LaCivita and thinking you can become Trump is like hiring a hairdresser in Hollywood and thinking you'll become Brad Pitt," Rama said.
He questioned Democrats for believing that "just because someone worked for Trump, they carry some kind of magical Trump power in society... anyway, it was a comedy worth watching."
Votes are still being counted and full preliminary results are expected on Tuesday, but with over 85 percent counted, the outcome is unlikely to change significantly.
The prime minister, who is very popular on social media, spent most of Monday posting footage from the House of Europe in Tirana, where preparations are in full swing for the European Political Community summit that will begin later this week.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa will travel to Albania for the 6th edition of the summit — an initiative launched by French President Emmanuel Macron to bring together EU and non-EU countries for talks on security, economic cooperation and regional stability. Also present will be representatives of other countries hoping to join the EU, such as Ukraine and Georgia.
"It is a great honor to welcome our entire democratic continent to Tirana — including Ukraine and my dear friend Volodymyr Zelensky," Rama said.
Western Balkan countries have experience in the long and complex process of preparing for EU membership, with some having spent decades changing laws and public institutions, seeking to minimize disruptions to the bloc after entry.
Asked if Albania had any advice for Ukraine, which is an EU aspirant, Rama emphasized Ukraine's unique status in the accession process.
"Albania does not pretend to teach lessons to Ukraine. On the contrary, we can only learn from Ukraine — from the price its people are willing to pay for their path to the West and the European Union," he said.
Rama succeeds by playing the role of benevolent host to Western leaders and reinforcing his main election promise that he is the only person who can bring Albania to the brink of EU membership within five years.
Meanwhile, the main opposition party, the Democrats — who appear to have secured around 52 seats in parliament — blamed the result on what they called the Socialist Party's entrenched control over institutions and suspected attempts to influence voters.
“If tens of thousands of people are employed in exchange for their vote… if polling stations are surrounded by party loyalists on all sides… then we know what to call these elections,” Democratic Party leader Sali Berisha said in a statement.
Hoping to stage a political comeback similar to Trump's 2024 comeback, Albania's center-right Democratic Party hired Trump campaign strategist LaCivita to help craft their message and run the campaign.
LaCivita reinforced Berisha's claims of election manipulation in a post on X, sharing a report from local news channel Syri TV about a suspected Socialist Party vote-buying office located near a polling station in Tirana.
"This is what vote theft looks like in Albania... courtesy of Edie Rama's narco-government," LaCivita's post said.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's election monitoring mission said Monday that the elections were conducted in an inclusive and transparent manner, but noted that the Socialist Party's long stay in government "created an unfair advantage in power."
But for Rama, who is savoring his victory, only one thing was important: the sentiment of the voters.
“They have sent a powerful and simple message: 'We want to finally reach the heights of the European Union — and we can only do this with you and the Socialist Party!'” / Adapted Pamphlet from Politico /
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