Protests over Jared Kushner-backed resort expand into wider anti-corruption movement in Albania
Protests sparked by a controversial luxury resort enter their fourth month, escalating into a prolonged political standoff for Albania’s ruling party.
What began as a localized environmental campaign against a luxury resort development backed by Jared Kushner has hardened into a 100-day siege of Albania’s political center, mounting the most formidable challenge in years to the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama.
Demonstrators marched along Tirana’s main thoroughfares, rallying near local high schools to mobilize students into the movement, dubbed by organizers as the “Flamingo Revolution” as flamingos inhabit the protected Vjosa-Narta wetland ecosystem where the resort was supposed to be built. Chanting “Rama, resign” and “Your time is up,” protesters confronted security forces in the latest escalation of a campaign that has repeatedly paralyzed parts of the capital.
The unrest originally erupted over government plans to allow Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, to construct high-end tourism facilities on the uninhabited Sazan Island and within the protected Vjosa-Narta wetland along the Adriatic coast. While Rama framed the investment as a key catalyst for tourism and European Union integration, environmentalists fiercely opposed the privatization of pristine reserves.
OCCRP revealed that Rama backed a 2023 law relaxing environmental restrictions on protected areas shortly before the project was advanced. Furthermore, OCCRP reported that the project’s ownership structure was concealed behind a cascade of offshore shell companies stretching to Amsterdam and Doha, and that Albania’s anti-corruption agency had unfrozen $127 million in related assets after facing political pressure.
In recent weeks, those revelations have transformed the demonstrations into a wider revolt against systemic corruption and state capture. Tensions reached a boiling point after social media footage showed a police officer punching a handcuffed protester in Tirana. Although authorities suspended the officer and opened a disciplinary probe, police have initiated criminal proceedings against dozens of rally organizers. Roughly 160 citizens have been detained since the unrest began, with recent clashes outside Parliament drawing an deployment of 1,600 riot officers.
“The standard for the police is necessarily higher than the standard for the protester,” said Lutfi Dervishi, a local journalist and analyst, emphasizing that state security must exercise restraint.
Rama, however, has remained defiant. Addressing his party, he cast the unrest as a sign of a maturing society and introduced a governance reform plan, dubbed “Besa,” aimed at improving transparency. Rama declared that Albania is moving into an era where citizens rightly demand higher standards, even as he condemned the demonstrators’ tactics and insisted his government would not be coerced into resigning.