Outside the cafe in the park, when the gas has cleared, 27-year-old activist Sidorela Vatnikaj, a masters student, describes her typical day. In a movement without leaders she is one of the more experienced, with eight years in the forefront of anti-government protests behind her.
“In the morning, you try to co-ordinate with all the groups – where they are, and where the protest is taking place. If any lawyers are needed, if any first aid kit or any kind of equipment is needed. And you also have to make sure all your friends, your family members in the protest are OK.”
The day is spent going from protest to protest, much of it running from police, she said.
She is uncomfortable with the violence towards the authorities from her fellow protesters, but blames the police for starting and fuelling it.
“When I see people throwing stones at the police, I understand their anger. I don’t judge them. I’m not happy, but they have no other way to be listened to,” Vatnikaj said.
“They come from families whose family members had no other choice than to leave the country – a million in the past decade. They have not only been robbed, they have been bullied, ignored and now they they have also been beaten up.”
At the weekend, the prime minister asked rhetorically what would happen if he stepped down.
“We need a technocratic government for one year, to prepare the country for real, democratic elections,” Vatnikaj replies. She has accused Rama of rigging previous elections, and of being hand in glove with rich foreign investors and organised crime groups.
Young people in Albania feel encouraged by their fellow Gen Z protesters around the world, Vatnikaj said.
“I have seen my mother and father’s generation, working all their lives and dreaming of having a democratic society where they could live with dignity. That never happened,” she said.
Rama has been in power for 13 years, and has been a dominant figure in Albanian politics since the turn of the century. He has promised EU membership by 2030, and said he is the only one who can deliver it.
