By Elisa Spiropali, deputy of the Socialist Party
And imagine yourself as a demonstrator, in the middle of the protest, among people who have taken to the streets because they feel unheard, unrepresented, betrayed, and exhausted.
Imagine yourself not as a prime minister who watches the protest from afar, through screens, but as a young person standing in the middle of the crowd, hearing the shouts, feeling the fear, and understanding the main point: this anger did not begin today.
Everything started with the barriers that were put up to separate people from their space, the citizen from the city, the protest from the institution.
At first it seemed like a small issue, a debate about a public space, about trees, concrete, and the way a decision is made. But the barriers soon became a symbol of a power that divides, that places obstacles between itself and the people.
From the barriers we came to anger. From anger to clashes. And now, today, Tirana is in flames. Images that hurt everyone who loves Albania with all their heart.
This is the picture that must be seen clearly: not just as a series of events, but as a political message.
When a citizen can no longer find a door to knock on, they go out into the street.
When the street is not heard, anger grows stronger.
When power sees every criticism as a conspiracy, every protest as a threat, and every opponent as an enemy, then society begins to speak the language of violence.
Violence cannot be the path to political change. Nor can the systemic violence of wrong decisions.
From the protest, among voices, anger, and fear, it becomes clearer that the crisis is not resolved with statements from offices, with distance from the people, or with political justifications. It requires you to listen directly, to acknowledge what is not working, to take political responsibility, and to make effective decisions.
A person does not rebel only because of what they lack.
A person also rebels because of the feeling that no one is listening. And a power that does not listen to the Person, however strong it may be, begins to become fragile, because it wounds the deepest human feeling: dignity.
If you ask me what you should do now, the answer is simple:
Offer political solutions. Without taboos, without limits, and without fear.
Face the citizens.
Do not hide behind the majority, institutions, or the number of mandates. Acknowledge that trust does not return with words, but with responsibility and action.
Within the protest, the young people of Albania are not asking for, and are not satisfied with, calm alone.
People demand justice, dignity, transparency, and guarantees. Their voice will not be heard only when the street fills up and anger becomes impossible to ignore.
This time they did not come out only over the barriers. They came out over the way decisions are made about them without their presence. They came out for an administration where employment is often linked to obscure reasons, and not to merit.
They came out because life can change for them through arbitrariness, and they have nowhere to turn.
For an economy where connection to power is worth more than work. Selection matters more than competition.
For a justice system that often seems delayed.
For a politics that seeks their vote, which changes less and less, because the winners boast and the losers fade away. For the protection of the unprotected and the trampling of political morality.
They have taken to the streets for these and other reasons, but they are being ignored.
Violence cannot be the path to political change. But setting fire to things cannot be the answer to the crisis either. What is happening is not merely a clash on the streets. It is a shock to trust, an erosion of legitimacy, and a warning that the way the country is governed must change.
Do not see this protest only as a threat to power. See it as an opportunity to understand what is happening to the country and to the people you govern. If you want to protect what has been built, you must be the first to open the way for change.
Power does not always fall because of its opponents. Often it falls because of an inability to understand the times. History has punished those who thought a parliamentary majority could replace the trust of citizens.
82 seats are not a mandate to avoid accountability. They are a responsibility to govern for those who did not vote for us as well.
People are not asking for privileges. They are asking that the state not be strong only against the weak. That powers be separate and accountable. They are asking that the administration not be used for pressure, that employment not depend on connections, that favors not be distributed through preferential ties, and that justice not come only after the damage has been done. They are asking that monopolies be fought and that life be affordable and humane.
A citizen who loses their job or is not promoted because they refuse to become part of any bargain is not a statistic.
A business that closes because it has no ties to power is not simply a loser in the market.
A family that waits years for justice is not a file. A working family that cannot make ends meet is not an exception.
These are people who, little by little, lose faith that the state is theirs.
A privileged caste cannot be protected in the name of protecting governance.
The all-powerful who use power to trample over people, property, business and principles cannot be shielded. Legal responsibility does not exempt anyone from political responsibility.
Corruption is not fought only with SPAK or prosecutors. It is fought by building an economic and institutional model where competition is fair and success does not depend on ties to power.
A state is not measured only by the roads it builds, but by the justice it guarantees. It is not measured only by growth figures, but by how the ordinary person lives. It is not measured only by the number of investments, but by whether the citizen has the opportunity to live with dignity, to compete, and to build a free life.
We need a moral renewal at the foundation of institutions. A politics that places at its center the human being and their dignity, not the interest of those who hold boundless and unjustified power.
Institutions are sustained not only by buildings and laws, but by the trust of citizens.
When the law is applied only to the weak, it is no longer justice, but organized fear.
When an institution protects only the strong, it is no longer a state, but a wall standing against the citizen.
This protest calls for a political response, not only a police response. It calls for a genuine national dialogue table on fundamental reforms: for a consensual electoral system that guarantees real representation, for separating the party from the state, and for freeing institutions from political instrumentalization.
We cannot demand calm by silencing young people, however hoarse the voice of the outraged may be. Real calm is not the absence of noise; it is the presence of justice. A society is not calm because it does not protest, but because it believes it can change without clashing.
Deputies can no longer keep depending only on closed lists and on the interest of political survival. More competition, more freedom and less control over people’s lives are needed.
A deputy must answer to the citizen, not only to the party leader. Otherwise parliament turns into a counting room, where votes are collected but voices are extinguished, lost.
The Socialist Party too must have the courage to change. Through genuine elections within it, based on merit, self-correction, responsibility, and opening the way for a new generation of leaders.
Convene the PS structures to make decisions. Lead the process of change; do not reinforce the myth of indispensability. We must move from a culture of the individual to a culture of the institution.
A party that does not know how to change from within will soon be forced to change from outside. And change imposed from the outside is always more painful than change planned in time.
What is needed is not people loyal to the party at any cost, but a party loyal to Albania.
Political rotation must not be a taboo. Nor should new elections be seen as a threat, if they become part of a democratic solution, with guarantees of free competition and participation for all. Elections must be an opportunity to restore trust, not another clash that divides the country into hostile camps.
Democracy is not the property of the winner. It is the responsibility of the winner, and protection for the one who loses.
If elections are seen only as a way to take power, then they remain a pointless exhaustion, an empty ritual, a coffin of victory.
If elections are seen as a way to give the citizen a voice, then they become the foundation of the state, a guarantee of development.
Democratic paths must be opened everywhere, so that roads are not closed by barricades.
It is the hour of change.
Take this as a mature responsibility.
It is not enough to say the country is moving forward if a large part of the citizens feel forgotten.
It is not enough to talk about modernization if young people do not feel part of the future.
It is not enough to win elections numerically if you lose people’s trust.
From the barriers to today’s flames in the middle of Tirana, the message is clear: people do not want to live in a country where power sees them only as numbers, only as votes to be counted, only as crowds to be managed. They want to be seen as citizens, as individuals with the right to oppose and to demand accountability.
I believe politics must be where people seek answers.
The answer they expect from you is not another speech. It is a decision.
A decision not to defend power at all costs. A decision not to call those who demand justice enemies. A decision not to confuse silence with peace and conviction with loyalty.
Albania above all. Not the party above all. Not power above all.
Now it is not enough to win elections.
Now you must restore trust.
Now Albania must win.
We must not defeat society; we must elevate it.
You, the idealist of the past, you, the intellectual who mocked banality and in 2013 many on the right looked upon with sympathy – you can!
These are things a person who values you says, one who believes the good within you is incomparably greater than everything else.
Elisa