Protest and power in the Western Balkans

Serbia and Albania are governed by men who have each held power for more than a decade, Aleksandar Vucic and Edi Rama. Both are candidates for the European Union, both court investors from every direction, and both now face the largest protests of their rule. In Serbia the cause was the collapse of a newly renovated railway station roof that killed sixteen people. In Albania it is a luxury resort planned on protected coast by the son-in-law of the American president. In both, the protesters say the real subject is a state run for the benefit of those who hold it.

Where it stands · September 2026

Serbia's president called snap elections for October. He said he would resign in late September and run for prime minister. He resigned on 27 September to run for prime minister. Bosnia expelled Serbian diplomats after the funeral of Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general convicted of genocide by the United Nations tribunal. Student protests continued in Serbia.

What the dispute is about

Accountability. Who answers when a public building kills people, or when protected land is rezoned for a foreign investor months before he asks for it. In both countries prosecutors, regulators and most broadcasters answer to the governing party.

How to change a government. Serbia's students demanded elections for a year. Albania's protesters demand a caretaker government of experts, which the constitution does not provide for, because they trust neither big party.

The outside powers. Serbia takes Chinese loans, Russian gas, European grants and American pressure, and sells ammunition that reaches Ukraine. Albania is America's most loyal client in the region. The European Union, which both want to join, has said little.

How each side explains it

The account of the two governments

Serbia's: the collapse was a tragedy, those responsible have been charged, and the president offered the election the protesters asked for. A movement that blocks universities and roads for a year, with money and encouragement from abroad, wants power without winning votes. Serbia will stay friends with Russia and China, join Europe, and recognise no one's right to tell it whom to honour. Albania's: a small poor country has become one of Europe's fastest growing through tourism and foreign capital. The resort brings a billion and a half dollars and thousands of jobs. The government won its fourth term a year ago, and a crowd in the capital cannot cancel that.

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The account of the protest movements

Sixteen people were killed by a roof that was rebuilt twice, by contractors chosen without open tender, and certified as safe. No minister has been convicted. In Albania a law protecting the last wild stretch of coast was rewritten to suit one investor, and villagers who objected were beaten. These are not accidents. Where one party controls the courts, the media and the contracts, corruption is the system, and elections held under that control do not end it.

What each account leaves out

The governments' leaves out that in Serbia the first indictments over the roof were sent back by the courts and no senior official has been tried; that the same president who speaks of Europe gave state honours to a man the United Nations tribunal convicted of genocide; and that in Albania the investor is a member of the family of the president whose favour the government most needs.

The protest movements' leaves out that Serbia's students long refused to name leaders or a programme, and that their ranks run from liberals to nationalists who agree with the president on Kosovo, on Russia and on Mladic; and that Albania's prime minister won a clear election in 2025, against an opposition whose own leader is on trial for corruption.

Brussels's leaves out that its silence has a price list: a lithium mine in Serbia that Germany's car industry wants, and quiet on the Kosovo border.

The ledger

Serbia's president

Wanted: by his account, stability and a vote at the proper time.
Did: conceded a prime minister, then an election, on his own timing.
Gained: a year and a half.
Paid: the universities, the young, and with the funeral much of what goodwill he had left in Europe.

Albania's prime minister

Wanted: the investment and Washington's favour.
Gained: both so far.
Paid: the first sustained revolt of his rule, led by people too young to remember anyone else.

The protesters

Words in dispute

Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.

stability / stabilitocracy
blockades / protests
foreign mercenaries / citizens
strategic investment / sale of the coast
captured state
hero / war criminal, of Mladic