Skip to main content

Who Wants to be Tirana's Mayor? They Do.

Now that the disputes over the elections have been resolved, the campaigning has begun. Over the weekend election posters began appearing in the city for both Rama and Olldashi.

Olldashi's workers appear to be busier - his posters are far more common than those for Rama in the areas of the city that I have visited recently. On the bus shelter below you can see two of them, but they were on every one of the six available spaces.

In contrast, this was the only advertising site carrying Rama's poster I passed this morning, though I have seen others over the weekend in other parts of town.




Comments

Miss Kim said…
In my neighbourhood most of the posters were flying around on the ground.
Ll.T. said…
So Alwyn, we Albanians are big on conspiracy theories and therefore I can't help but ask: Who are you foreigners supporting this time? :)
olli said…
Plenty on the ground round here too. Perhaps that's why they chose to encase some in this way. I look forward to seeing if any graffiti artists have a go - this would be particularly appropriate for Rama.

Not sure who the official 'interfering foreigner' candidate is this time round. As a Brit, I imagine we will wait to see who the French support and then back the other one.
Ll.T. said…
Good answer Alwyn, you should be in the foreign service!
tabakhone said…
OMiT!
Once again you make me laugh! Right you are! Let's wait for the French first and then let's hear from the Crown.
I do quote you in bar talks nowadays: Vote early, vote often!
'tjeta!
ITS said…
My reasoning would be that all foreigners should support Olldashi being that he is a foreigner to Tirana himself.

He is representing the international community by being a good-old "Chechen" running for Tirana's number one spot!

;)
Anonymous said…
Hi, I just surfed around and found this page.

Nice blog.

Take care

FT/Sweden
olli said…
Hello FT. Welcome. We have some good Swedish friends here mostly working with SIDA. Unfortunately none of them are blogging.

Popular posts from this blog

Dy Rame Per Tirane

I was watching Top Channel last night, first the news, then Fiks Fare. According to them Tirana's citizens now have a choice not only between Rama and Olldashi, but also between Rama and Rama. A minor right-wing faction, Parti 'Balli Kombetar' , submitted papers to the election authorities registering their candidate, Akile Rama. The people on Fiks Fare got hold of the papers and sent a reporter and camera team to the address listed for Mr A Rama. After much ringing of the bell the gate was reluctantly opened by a middle-aged woman who refused to speak to the reporter and tried to close the gate on her. Back in the studio Saimiri and Doctori - the two presenters of Fiks Fare - revealed that Mr Akile Rama was 73 years old, in hospital, and did not know he was now a candidate for mayor. They also compared two documents - the papers submitted on his behalf, and a genuine document he had signed. The signatures were not even remotely similar. There was an interview with the lea...

Albania and the Perils of the 21st Century

Another article on religion in Albania appeared yesterday. Patrick Poole, writing in the American Thinker , argues that Saudi funding for the construction of mosques and the training of imams is a threat to Albania, since these mosques and imams reflect the fundamentalist interpretation of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia.

Only Way is Up

Chatting with a taxi driver while back in Belfast a few months ago, he was intrigued when I told him that I was living in Albania. Did I think it was worth investing in property there, he enquired. Not unless you're prepared to risk losing your money, I replied. By the end of the journey he was considering Bulgaria instead. Despite the risks, some people are starting to invest in Albanian property. The Daily Telegraph reports on Ian Warburton who recently spent 29,000 GBP (around 40,000 EUR) on a one-bedroom apartment in a new development in Tirana. "Given its location, I don't see how it can fail to work," he said. The development is called Terra Nova and the apartments are being actively marketed as an investment opportunity by Barrasford and Bird , a UK property company. Here is their sales pitch for Albania: Albania shares the same stunning coastline as Croatia and Montenegro. However, Albania has better weather and prices are about a quarter of those compa...