[ALBSA-Info] BBC per Tiranen

[Endri Leno]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_2069000/2069799.stm


Thursday, 27 June, 2002, 15:29 GMT 16:29 UK 
The mayor transforming Tirana

 
Tirana's central park: Formerly a concrete jungle

  
  
By Daniel Howden 
Tirana  
 
 

In Tirana's central park the grass is growing. 

In any other European city this would be hardly be a
cause for celebration but the Albanian capital has
precious little in common with other cities. 



I don't think that this Calvin Klein image does damage
- it's the other way around 
 
Edi Rama  
When Tirana's mayor, Edi Rama, took office the park
was just another derelict public space, its trees lost
amid illegal kiosks in a chaotic jumble of mud and
concrete. 

But nearly two years later the concrete kiosks have
been bulldozed, there are no longer piles of rotting
rubbish on the streets, and most of the lethal
pot-holes have gone. 

 
Mr Rama tackles vested interests - and survives
 
The 36-year-old former artist says that in a normal
city he would never have aspired to become mayor but
in this "strange and special place", he believes a
normal mayor could not have helped. 

When the eyes of the world last looked at Tirana
during the Kosovo refugee crisis in 1999, the city had
reached its nadir. 

A decade of anarchic capitalism had followed 50 years
of Stalinism and the population had swollen from
200,000 to nearer 800,000 with no sewage system or
rubbish collection. 

Those familiar with the role of the mafia in a country
listed by the World Bank among the world's most
corrupt, have been surprised at Mr Rama's physical and
political survival. 

Workers fired 

He puts it down to popular support and a policy of
making no exceptions. 

 
Rama sees Tirana as a strange and special place
 
"In the central park. they were all protected, very
protected by different politicians," he said. 

"When we had to destroy these buildings we didn't make
any allowances and when people realised that no-one
would be forgiven they were all happy to leave. We
have not made any differentiation, which would have
been very dangerous." 

The mayor's direct approach has seen a lot of former
municipal employees fired. On taking office he
discovered the municipality employed 800 people to
tend public spaces. 

The problem was that none of them ever came to work,
instead they split their wages with a corrupt official
who turned a blind eye. 

Five hundred were sacked and now the remainder can be
seen hard at work. 




You can't use the facade of a building as a canvas -
architecture is like sculpture, it's not a blank page 
 
Fatos Lobonja
Rama's former friend and critic  
With a passion for strange shirts, Mr Rama, who used
to live in Paris, is highly conscious of his image. 

He calls himself "a pop star among mayors but a mayor
among pop stars", and likes to compare his municipal
team to film-makers on a set. 

The municipality is, he claims, the only public sector
employer with a higher proportion of women than men. 

In this traditionally patriarchal society the staff of
sharply dressed young women has not gone unnoticed,
but Mr Rama makes no apologies for his hiring policy. 

"They all speak foreign languages, know how to
communicate and the most important thing is they work
for the city in the office always more than the eight
official hours," he said. 

"I don't think that this Calvin Klein image does
damage - it's the other way around." 

Riot of colour 

The main challenge, he says, has been to persuade
people that change is possible. 

To this end he has treated the bare exterior of the
city's grey buildings as a canvas to paint a
multi-coloured signal of what is to come. 

 
Rama treats the city's buildings as a canvas
 
The facades in the city centre are now a riot of
colour more reminiscent of a pop art painting than an
urban restoration project. 

But not everyone is pleased by the sometimes garish
results and his sceptics dismiss the urban revival as
"boulevardisation" to impress the international
community. 

Former friend and fellow intellectual Fatos Lobonja is
Mr Rama's biggest critic. 

The commentator and writer spent 17 years in prison
under the totalitarian regime of Enver Hoxha and has
earned his reputation as an independent critic of
Albania's post-communist politicians. 

Self-defence 

Mr Lobonja rejects Mr Rama's modern art experiments as
egoism. 



Three years ago they didn't have a municipality, now
they have one 
 
Edi Rama  
"You can't use the facade of a building as a canvas -
architecture is like sculpture, it's not a blank
page," he says. 

Accusing the one-time student leader of abandoning his
principles, Mr Lobonja reserves his harshest criticism
for the alleged closeness of the mayor's office to
Tirana's new breed of media proprietors. 

Mr Rama is aware of the accusations but is ready with
a trenchant self-defence. 

"Three years ago they didn't have a municipality, now
they have one. They have one institution that needs to
be reinforced, needs to be stronger, needs to be more
effective but has given to them back hundreds of green
spaces... squares and sidewalks... social services and
public transport." 

Ultimately, though, it will be the voters who decide
whether the mayor and his "film crew" will be given
the chance to make a sequel. 


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