Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner's Island Resort Could Bring Down Albania’s Prime Minister
Several weeks after Ivanka Trump unveiled a real estate venture with husband Jared Kushner for a proposed multibillion-dollar resort on Albania’s coastline, the project has
Several weeks after Ivanka Trump unveiled a real estate venture with husband Jared Kushner for a proposed multibillion-dollar resort on Albania’s coastline, the project has become the focal point of a mass uprising in the country. Furious demonstrators have filled the capital’s streets under signs declaring: “Albania is not a Gucci bag on sale.” What began as a localized fight against what critics describe as an alleged land grab has evolved to widespread outrage over potential damage to the region’s protected coastal wildlife, culminating this week with hundreds of thousands of Albanians taking to the streets of Tirana, the capital, to demand the end of the country’s government as they know it.
Protesters have sworn to keep going until their demands are met. Objection to the Trump-Kushner plans began at ground level on May 23, when word got out of a proposed development in the Zvërnec area—some 9 miles away from Sazan—which is affiliated with Kushner’s company Affinity Partners. The plan for Sazan Island was already public, but the Zvërnec project triggered a very different kind of reaction, due to its Vjosa–Narta ecosystem, one of Europe’s last wild coastal systems. News circulated among the roughly 150 locals that a residential and tourist complex had been proposed. A fence erected around a development site became the immediate trigger for confrontation; dozens of local residents and environmental activists attempted to remove the fence, leading to a clash with private security guards.
The incident, filmed and widely circulated online, became the first viral moment of the dispute as people were dragged away—bringing national attention to a project that critics say was previously discussed with limited transparency. Protests soon spread from the nearby city of Vlorë to Tirana. Within days, solidarity demonstrations were organized in Albanian diaspora communities in Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Greece. Unlike previous protests in Albania, this one claims no central leadership structure. It is decentralized, with students, activists, urban professionals, and diaspora groups converging around a shared set of grievances. It calls itself the Flamingo Revolution, named after the bird species that inhabits the area’s Narta Lagoon.
Flamingo symbols—on banners, clothing, and social media—have become shorthand for resistance against what protesters describe as the privatization of coastal land and public nature. Protesters outside the Prime Minister's office in Tirana, Albania, on June 17. Photograph: Vlasov Sulaj Protesters are now calling for the resignation of Albania’s prime minister and the repeal of four pieces of legislation many say enable unchecked investment: the so-called “Mountain Package,” legislation for strategic investments, and amendments to the Law on Protected Areas and the Law on Cultural Heritage.
The BriefWire