Jared Kushner’s goal to open a luxury resort on Albania’s coast has hit a speed bump. Albanian investigators have begun digging into the private equity firm spearheading the project: the first son-in-law’s Affinity Partners. Mass public protests over the proposed resort are a flashpoint for more broad civic frustrations. What began as a “local land dispute on Albania’s southern coast,” said France 24, has now become a forum for “wider grievances” over “corruption, arrogance of power and disgruntlement with the ruling government.”
Environmental origins of a ‘flamingo revolution’
The proposed luxury resort project is slated for construction on the “uninhabited Adriatic island of Sazan” and hundreds of acres of the Vjosa-Narta protected site, a “sensitive coastal wetland area home to flamingos, seals and sea turtle nesting sites,” said Politico. Protesters gathered outside Prime Minister Edi Rama’s office this week “using a pink flamingo as their emblem,” said the BBC.
The symbol “echoes the deployment of a yellow duck” used in Serbian civic protests, but here “reflects the protesters’ very specific concerns” about the project’s environmental impact. “Hence,” said France 24, “why the movement has now been nicknamed Albania’s ‘flamingo revolution.’” Asher Abehsera, Kushner’s “business partner” on the project, claims the development will focus on “responsible stewardship” and “enhancing the environment,” as well as on creating “jobs and value for local communities,” said the BBC.
‘Total lack of transparency’
Initially a local development dispute, the project has spiraled into a “national political crisis,” said the Tirana Times, “triggering mass protests” and calls for Rama’s resignation. In addition to opposition to Kushner’s involvement in the construction, the endeavor has “drawn scrutiny” over “disputed land titles, unclear ownership structures and the involvement of powerful domestic business interests.”
“From start to finish, there has been a total lack of transparency,” said leading Albanian conservationist Aleksander Trajce to The Guardian. “We have seen no public consultation or public documentation regarding permits.” If Albanian authorities “remove the bulldozers, remove the fence and restore the habitats to what they were, then we can start talking.”
Prime Minister Rama has hailed the project as a “milestone in the Balkan country’s trajectory from Stalinist state to high-end holiday destination,” The Guardian said. While he has offered to “meet protesters in an attempt to break the logjam,” Rama also “stuck to his guns,” declaring last week that “there is absolutely no chance that the investment will stop as long as I am here.”
Broader frustrations with the political establishment
“No longer only about a resort,” the growing protests are now a “vehicle for wider anger” over Albanian civic society, said the Tirana Times. “It’s more or less everything” at the protests, said Albanian Ornithological Society President Taulant Bino to The New York Times. “You find people from the left, people from the right, people from different religious beliefs.”
Now, investigators from Albania’s Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime anti-corruption office are digging into “controversial changes in the area’s protected status and land ownership in 2024,” said Politico. The office operates “independently of the national judiciary” and is “currently the most trusted institution in the country, according to several independent polls.”
Albania’s ‘flamingo revolution’ has grown beyond its environmentalist origins
