International Institute for Middle East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES)[1] from Ljubljana, regularly analyses developments in the Middle East, the Balkans, and other regions around the world. In his analysis entitled “How Albania’s Deep Democratic Crisis Took Root: April 21, 2008, Still Shapes Today,” Ambassador and Associate Professor Dr. Arben Cici examines how Albania’s constitutional amendments of 21 April 2008 contributed to the concentration of political power, weakened democratic accountability and parliamentary oversight, restricted political competition, and deepened the crisis of political representation. He argues that overcoming this crisis requires comprehensive institutional reforms to strengthen democratic accountability, ensure genuine political representation and restore citizens’ trust in democratic institutions.
What Albania is experiencing today is not merely a crisis of government. It is a crisis of a political system that, for years, has worked to concentrate power, restrict political competition, and distance citizens from decision-making.
The roots of this crisis can be traced, in significant part, to 21 April 2008[2], when constitutional amendments adopted at the eleventh hour fundamentally altered the architecture of political representation in Albania.
That day, it was not merely a matter of changing a few articles of the Constitution. The rules of the political game were changed. And when those who hold power are also in a position to rewrite the rules governing its exercise, the first question must be straightforward: who gained more power, and who lost the ability to hold that power in check?
The answer leads us to a problem that has become increasingly difficult to ignore: the concentration of power in the hands of party leaders, the weakening of Parliament as an institution of oversight, and the emergence of a system in which citizens vote but do not always have a meaningful opportunity to determine who represents them.
To understand this crisis, we must examine not only how the country is governed, but also the rules that determine who enters politics, who makes decisions, who exercises oversight, and how much power citizens have to change the system.
The constitutional amendments of 21 April 2008, were adopted with the consensus of Albania’s two main political forces at the time: the Democratic Party, led by Sali Berisha, and the Socialist Party, led by Edi Rama.[3]
The reform was not simply the product of an ordinary confrontation between the governing majority and the opposition. It was supported by the two parties that represented the principal poles of political power in Albania. Despite their disagreements over governance, they agreed to change the fundamental rules of political representation.
The transition to a regional proportional electoral system with closed lists brought a fundamental change in the relationship between elected representatives and political power, increasing the importance of political parties and their leaders in selecting parliamentary candidates.
In a functioning democracy, members of Parliament should represent citizens, exercise their mandates independently, and hold the government accountable. Yet when candidacy, political advancement, and future electoral prospects depend heavily on decisions made by party leadership, a form of dependency emerges that can undermine this role.
This is one of the most serious problems facing Albania’s political model: Parliament is becoming less an institution that scrutinizes the executive and more a mechanism for supporting the decisions of a parliamentary majority controlled by the party leadership.
This does not mean that every member of Parliament has abandoned their independence or that every parliamentary decision is personally dictated by a party leader. It means that the system creates strong incentives for obedience to the party hierarchy and makes political independence more costly.
Democracy is weakened not only when the law is violated. It is also weakened when institutional rules and political practices discourage elected representatives from exercising the freedom and responsibility that their mandates are supposed to guarantee.
In a functioning democracy, a party leader heads a political organization. The leader must earn the support of party members, face internal competition, account for political results, and step aside when confidence in their leadership is lost.
In Albania, however, a strong tendency toward the personalization of party power has become entrenched.
The party leader is no longer simply the person who directs the organization. The leader has become the principal gateway to parliamentary office, political advancement, and the distribution of opportunities within the party.
When this control is combined with strict parliamentary discipline and weak internal democracy, a dangerous relationship emerges: members of Parliament depend on the party, the party depends on its leader, and decision-making becomes concentrated within an increasingly narrow circle.
This is the model of personalized political power that has taken root in Albania.
In such a system, institutions continue to exist, Parliament meets, laws are passed, and elections are held. But the decisive question is whether these institutions possess the autonomy necessary to constrain power or whether they risk serving primarily to legitimize decisions made elsewhere.
Democracy cannot be measured solely by the existence of elections. It must also be measured by the genuine ability to challenge those in power, compete within political parties, and hold the government accountable.
When these opportunities diminish, as they have in Albania, elections may continue to take place while the quality of democracy suffers profound damage.
Albania’s political system is characterized by substantial advantages enjoyed by the two main parties in political competition. This is not simply a question of how many parties hold seats in Parliament. It is a question of how the system operates and whether meaningful opportunities exist to compete within it.
When major parties exercise strong control over candidate selection, possess established nationwide organizational structures, command substantial resources, and exert considerable influence over the political agenda, new parties face significant barriers to entry.
The regional proportional system does not automatically exclude smaller parties from representation, nor does it, by itself, prove the existence of a permanent agreement between the two main parties. Nevertheless, the interaction between electoral rules, internal party control, and unequal access to resources can make it more difficult for new political alternatives to emerge and establish themselves as credible competitors.
This creates a democratic paradox.
Citizens are told that they are free to choose, yet the alternatives capable of becoming genuinely competitive remain limited.
Citizens are told that they can punish the government at the ballot box, yet the opposition may fail to offer a convincing break from the same model of personalized power and internal party control. Citizens are told that change comes through elections, yet changing the names at the top of institutions does not guarantee a change in the way power is exercised.
Citizens are told that free elections are the means through which they can change those in power and build the state. Yet, in Albania, elections have too often failed to produce the institutional changes necessary to strengthen the state and restore public accountability.
When political alternatives fail to offer credible institutional change, a transfer of power may replace officeholders without changing the system that reproduces the same problems.
This is the heart of Albania’s crisis of political representation: dissatisfaction with the government is substantial and legitimate, but distrust of the way the entire political class operates may run even deeper.
The constitutional amendments of 2008 also affected the mechanisms governing relations between state institutions, including the method of electing the President and the relationship between the executive and Parliament.
It would not be accurate to claim that the Constitution granted the prime minister absolute power. Albania remained a parliamentary republic, with institutions and constitutional procedures formally designed to constrain government authority.
The problem, however, goes deeper than the legal wording.
Absolute power may not exist in the constitutional text, yet the concentration of power can become a practical reality when oversight mechanisms fail to function properly.
If the prime minister controls the parliamentary majority, the majority follows the party hierarchy, and members of Parliament have little room to dissent, parliamentary oversight of the government can be significantly weakened, sometimes to the point of becoming largely ineffective. If supervisory institutions lack sufficient independence, authority, or capacity, holding the executive accountable becomes increasingly difficult.
A prime minister does not need to amend the Constitution every day to concentrate power. It may be enough for the institutions meant to impose limits to lack the independence, will, or capacity to do so effectively.
This is the central institutional problem facing Albania: the gap between the formal existence of democratic checks and their effective exercise in practice.
One of the most significant weaknesses of the mechanism for electing the President in Albania[7] is the risk that it produces not a guarantor of the Constitution and democratic balances, but a President who is institutionally constrained and politically dependent on the majority that elected him, effectively rendering him a figure subservient to that majority’s political will.
When the head of state is elected through the will of a parliamentary majority and subsequently acts as though bound to follow that majority's political preferences, the institution risks losing its very constitutional raison d’être.
The current President serves as a telling example of this problem. He has not convincingly demonstrated an ability to rise above the logic of competing political factions and embody the role of an institutional figure acting beyond narrow party interests.
Nevertheless, the method of election does not explain everything. Personal integrity, character, and the willingness to exercise constitutional powers are also decisive. The manner in which the office is exercised matters just as much as the mechanism through which its holder is elected.
Under these circumstances, the presidency risks being perceived not as an institution that embodies national unity and safeguards constitutional balance, but as one constrained by the interests of the political majority.
The President should not be an extension of the parliamentary majority that elects him. The office should be exercised with impartiality, integrity, and institutional responsibility.
Throughout his term, the President has failed to establish himself convincingly as an independent and impartial national figure capable of commanding respect across political divisions and possessing the institutional dignity necessary to help facilitate a solution to the deep crisis currently afflicting Albania.
This is one of the most problematic consequences that can arise from closed party lists. In a functioning democracy, members of Parliament should have strong incentives to answer to citizens. They should consider the public interest, the quality of legislation, and the consequences of their decisions.
But when a political career depends primarily on the position assigned by the party leader on an electoral list, those priorities can be reversed.
Instead of asking, “What do my constituents expect of me?”, a representative may begin asking, “What does the party leader expect of me?”
Instead of speaking out against a bad decision, the representative may choose silence. When elected representatives have stronger incentives to obey their party leaders than to answer to the judgment of citizens, the connection between the vote and political accountability is weakened. And when that connection weakens, citizens begin to feel excluded from decision-making. They vote, but do not feel represented.
They demand accountability and protest, but encounter a system in which responsibility is dispersed among institutions, parties, and individuals, making it difficult to determine who is truly accountable for the decisions being made.
This is how the crisis of representation deepens in Albania.
Political crisis does not remain confined within the walls of Parliament, the President's Office, or independent institutions. It affects the economy, society, and the everyday lives of Albanian citizens.
When people believe that advancement depends more on political connections than ability, when nepotism is perceived as a normal feature of public institutions, and when opportunities appear reserved for those close to power, confidence in justice and equality of opportunity is undermined.
When young people see no realistic opportunity to build careers on merit, some seek opportunities abroad[9]. When entrepreneurs believe that success depends on proximity to those in power, economic competition is damaged. When corruption is not punished credibly, citizens lose faith that the law applies equally to everyone. When political parties are seen as closed organizations, capable people may leave politics or abandon the idea of participating in it altogether.
Of course, emigration, corruption, economic inequality, and institutional weakness have multiple historical, economic, and social causes. They cannot be attributed to a single constitutional reform. However, the amendments of 2008 contributed to a political framework in which the concentration of power and the weakening of accountability could reinforce one another, fostering a sense of political untouchability and the arrogance that often accompanies it.
Thus, the model of representation matters because it determines how easily citizens can challenge flawed decisions and hold those in power accountable. It also influences how effectively democracy, accountability, and transparency function in practice.
When these democratic mechanisms fail to function effectively, problems accumulate, leaving citizens feeling increasingly powerless to resolve them through ordinary institutional channels and more inclined to resort to the legitimate mechanism of public protest.
A society does not lose hope only when it becomes poorer. It also loses hope when people come to believe that hard work, ability, and honesty are not enough to change their circumstances.
This is Albanian society today.
When power becomes personalized and political parties close themselves to internal competition, conditions emerge in which political loyalty is valued more highly than professional ability.
In such a system, people with competence, integrity, and new ideas may find it difficult to advance within the political hierarchy unless they enjoy the support of party leaders.
Meanwhile, those who maintain close relationships with the center of power may enjoy substantial advantages. This creates a vicious cycle.
Political parties become less open to new ideas. Internal competition weakens. Decision-making becomes concentrated in the hands of the party leader and a narrow circle of associates, whether in the governing majority or the opposition.
Mistakes are repeated because those capable of challenging them lack sufficient influence or are excluded from decision-making. When loyalty and servility are rewarded more than ability and integrity, politics risks losing precisely the people who could improve it.
Citizens consequently begin to perceive politics as a sphere reserved for a limited group of leaders and their supporters. This is why internal party democracy is not an organizational luxury. It is a fundamental condition for democracy throughout the country.
If the parties seeking to govern the state do not guarantee competition, transparency, and accountability within their own organizations, they risk reproducing the same model in public institutions.
This is what has happened in Albania.
When public dissatisfaction is directed against a government, the political solution may appear relatively straightforward: elections, a transfer of power, and a new majority.
But when dissatisfaction is directed against the way the entire political system operates, the crisis is of a different nature. Citizens no longer ask only whether the current government should leave office. They ask whether political parties are capable of providing genuine representation. They ask whether Parliament can hold the government accountable. They ask whether elections can bring about profound change or merely replace the people occupying positions of power. They ask whether the judiciary, public administration, and state institutions serve the public interest or are influenced by political interests.
This is why opposition to a government can develop into opposition to an entire model of governance. If part of society concludes that neither the government nor the opposition offers a convincing path to change, the crisis cannot be resolved simply by replacing one with the other.
The rules and practices that make power difficult to scrutinize and allow it to become concentrated in the hands of a few must also change.
This does not mean that all political parties are identical, that the government and opposition always bear equal responsibility, or that every protest expresses the same political position. The government has a direct and distinct responsibility because it has both the duty and the institutional instruments to address economic, social, and financial problems, uphold the rule of law, and strengthen public trust.
The government's conduct directly influences whether the risk of social division deepens or subsides, and whether the situation escalates toward open conflict with potentially devastating consequences for society. Unfortunately, this risk is not currently diminishing in Albania.
When a crisis of confidence becomes systemic, no political force can demand trust simply by presenting itself as the opponent of the government. It must demonstrate concretely what it intends to change about the exercise of power and how it will constrain its own authority.
An opposition whose only objective is to take power is not necessarily the answer to a systemic crisis. The answer must be a political and institutional alternative that accepts clear rules, independent oversight, and equal accountability for whoever governs.
What must change?
The crisis requires fundamental changes. The solution requires restoring a state whose institutions serve the public interest rather than the political survival of those in power, a state that, in the eyes of many citizens, was effectively taken from them through the concentration of power that followed the constitutional changes of 21 April 2008.
The Constitution must not be an agreement designed to preserve the political survival of the elites. It must guarantee that no political elite can become unaccountable.
Yet this is precisely the danger that Albania's political development since 21 April 2008, has brought into sharper focus.
When we speak about the crisis of Albanian democracy today, we must look beyond the government of the day, the latest scandal, or the latest protest. We must examine the political model that connects these developments and shapes the relationship between citizens and power.
The problem is not merely who governs today. The problem is whether citizens have a meaningful opportunity to decide who represents them, who governs them tomorrow, how the exercise of power is scrutinized, and how those who no longer serve the public interest can be removed through democratic means.
For this very reason, April 21, 2008, remains a date worth recalling in the country's political memory, not to pretend that history began on that day, but to ensure that we do not forget how the rules of representation were altered and what consequences those changes may have had for the balance of power in Albania.
It is a way of saying that if we wish to understand the present, we must look back at the decisions that helped shape the system in which we live.
The constitutional amendments of April 21, 2008, do not explain the entire history of Albanian democracy. However, they represent an important point of reference for examining how the rules of representation changed and how those changes may have contributed to the concentration of political power.
They remind us that decisions about the rules of democracy have consequences that extend far beyond the terms of office of those who approve them.
For a democracy does not necessarily die on the day elections fail. Rather, it weakens gradually: when elections continue, yet competition becomes increasingly restricted; when Parliament exists, yet its oversight of the government wanes; when political parties compete against one another, yet permit no genuine competition within their own ranks.
And when a citizen comes to believe that their vote cannot change anything fundamental, the crisis is no longer confined to politics alone.
It becomes a crisis of faith in democracy itself. Democracy cannot be restored solely through the will of those who benefit from its weaknesses. It also requires the persistence of citizens who insist on making it work.
Protest in support of changing a system that fails to guarantee genuine representation, accountability, and effective oversight of power is therefore legitimate. It becomes necessary when ordinary democratic mechanisms fail to produce the required corrections.
And it becomes a civic and democratic imperative when silence, passivity, and the endless repetition of the same political model threaten to deepen the crisis even further.
To protest for the transformation of a system that fails to guarantee representation, accountability, and effective checks on power is not to oppose democracy. It is to demand more democracy, a real democracy in which institutions serve citizens rather than the political interests of those who control them.
Albania does not simply need a change of government. It needs a democracy in which power does not belong to a party leader, a political party, or the government, but is constrained by independent institutions and answerable to citizens.
It needs a state in which the law is not applied according to the interests of those in power, institutions are not used as instruments of political parties, and citizens are not merely voters for a single day but the bearers of sovereignty every day.
The young men and women protesting in the streets of Albania are among those who understand this demand most clearly. They are not simply calling for different people to occupy positions of power.
They are demanding a state that belongs to its citizens, institutions that answer to the public, and a political system in which no leader can place himself above the law.
Their demand for the restoration of the state is, at its core, a demand to reclaim the democratic promise that was compromised when the rules of political representation were changed on 21 April 2008.
The question facing Albania today is therefore not simply who will govern tomorrow, but whether the citizens of this country will finally be able to reclaim the power that democracy has always promised them.
About the author:
Ambassador Assoc. Prof. Dr. Arben Cici, currently lecturer of International Relations at Mediterranean University of Albania, former Ambassador of Albania to Denmark, Croatia, Russia, twice Advisor for the Foreign Policy of the President of the Republic, twice Director of the State Protocol at the Ministry of foreign Affairs, author of the Official Ceremonial of the Republic of Albania, analyst and excellent expert on the foreign policy.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect IFIMES official position.
Ljubljana/Tirana, 2 November 2026
[1] IFIMES – International Institute for Middle East and Balkan Studies, based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, has a special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council ECOSOC/UN in New York since 2018, and it is the publisher of the international scientific journal “European Perspectives”, link: https://www.europeanperspectives.org/en
[2] Amended by Law No. 9904, dated April 21, 2008, the Constitution of the Republic of Albania, published in the Official Gazette No. 61/2008. Publication by the Centre for Official Publications, August 2016.
[3] According to the vote by the members of the Assembly of Albania on the constitutional amendments: 115 in favor, 17 against, 3 abstentions, and 1 did not vote. Proceedings of the Assembly of Albania, Year 2008, No. 2. 17th Legislature. Pages 554–579.
[4] Constitution of the Republic of Albania, THE ASSEMBLY, CHAPTER I, ELECTION AND TERM, Articles 64, 65, and 68, amended by Law No. 9904, dated April 21, 2008, published in the Official Gazette No. 61/2008.
[5] Constitution of the Republic of Albania, THE ASSEMBLY, CHAPTER I, ELECTION AND TERM, Article 68, amended by Law No. 9904, dated April 21, 2008, published in the Official Gazette No. 61/2008.
[6] Two constitutional articles addressing motions of confidence and no-confidence. Articles 104 and 105, amended by Law No. 9404, dated 21 April 2008, Constitution of the Republic of Albania, PART FIVE: THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS; published in the Official Gazette No. 61/2008.
[7] Two articles stipulating the procedures for the election of the President, Constitution of the Republic of Albania, PART FOUR: THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC, Article 87 & Article 88, amended by Law No. 9404, dated 21 April 2008; published in the Official Gazette No. 61/2008.
[8] The 2025 data show that citizens display high levels of pessimism: 77% believe that the current corruption situation will remain unchanged. MONITORING CORRUPTION IN ALBANIA 2025 https://seldi.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/ACER_SELDI_EN_CMS-2025_.pdf.
Albanian Center for Economic Research (ACER), Southeast European Leadership for Development and Integrity (SELDI)
[9] Albania Ranks High in EU’s Foreign Nationalities, Albanian Daily News, JANUARY 30, 2026.
