Asphalt campaign for votes in the villages of Mati

Excavators and heavy machinery are the masters of the road leading to Frankthi, a village that lies on green hills and is surrounded by clean streams, just a few kilometers from the town of Burrel in the municipality of Mati.

The tranquility of the landscape is broken only by the noise of machinery working to pave the road on a Friday in April. For the villagers, this is a welcome sound for decades.

In what could be called a village square, where several cars and a motorbike are parked carelessly, the men are talking politics. They are divided into two camps; the skeptics who see the new asphalt as a means to influence their vote, and the enthusiasts, who praise the socialist candidate who made the investment possible.

"If there was no work, what do we need the road for," says Flori Lika, 22, who was also suspicious of the quality of the asphalt being laid.

 "It will be ruined before winter comes," he adds.

“They do it for the campaign,” also says Et'hem Kërtuka, an unemployed 64-year-old. But when asked if the road would influence his vote in the election, he added with humor: “They've lied to us, so we'll lie to them too.”

The 64-year-old's response did not please his cousin, Agron Kërtuka.

“Why don't you say halal to the one who puts a stone?” he addressed Et'hem. “This is the 100-year dream of this village and we should be grateful for what he did,” he added.

Thanks go to one man; the Socialist Party candidate for deputy in the Dibra district, Agron Malaj, who until March 11 was the mayor of Mat municipality, a position he had held since June 2019.

Before resigning to run for election, the municipality led by Malaj held a tender in December 2024 for the paving of roads in 17 villages with a total value of 330 million lekë, which will commit grants and revenues of this municipality for the next three years. The tender was won by the merger of operators “ZDRAVA” and “SALILLARI”, whose machines you see on almost every village road around Burrel in these days of the electoral campaign.

Opposition representatives denounce this tender as being made for electoral purposes.

Basir Çollaku, a journalist by profession and candidate for MP of the "Alliance for a Greater Albania" coalition, told BIRN in the café of the former Turizm hotel in the center of Burrel that he has entered an uneven campaign.

"The municipality's funds and investments are being used for the campaign, see for yourself," said Çollaku, pointing to the square in front of the hotel, where 2-3 workers are laying tiles.

Çollaku says that this is a campaign that plays on "the economic misery of the area and the pressure of a job."

"In every meeting I have, people are asking for water, electricity and roads, and the political opponent is using public funds in exchange for votes," he added.

Former mayor Malaj, currently a candidate for the Socialist Party, dismissed the accusations and insisted that the investments initiated by the municipality were unrelated to the electoral campaign.

“That’s their job to file charges,” Malaj told BIRN in a phone conversation. “Everything is in accordance with the electoral code,” he added, noting that the municipality’s funds for village roads are a project approved in 2024.

In the small town of Burrel, the afternoon tour begins and ends at a statue of Ahmet Zog, which, more than a political legacy for the area, is a reason to boast that the king was the son of Mat.

On the eve of the May 11 elections, his statue is surrounded by stacks of tiles waiting to be laid on the boulevard, while the campaign has no visible signs of flags or posters on the streets, but is discussed by everyone in cafes.

"These new tiles that are being laid are certainly for votes, but a few marble tiles will not solve our problems," said a resident of Burrel, who declined to be identified for fear that she might be fired from her job as a teacher.

According to the teacher, the area was facing a terrible depopulation, with everyone wanting to leave due to unemployment and lack of development.

"There are only single-family homes left, the sounds of children playing are no longer heard, our classrooms are shrinking every year," she said with concern.

In the Burrel and Klos areas, the campaign does not offer new political alternatives other than the two traditional parties, the DP and the SP, although all other parties have placed their names on the list. The campaign for new parties seems impossible in a polarized political terrain and with no financial resources.

Sonil Kola, a 27-year-old Political Science graduate, is however trying to break this polarization, by running for the "Albania Becomes Initiative" coalition.

We met Sonil in Burrel, after the residents of Frankthi boasted that a “village boy” was running on May 11. But Sonil says with a smile that he doubts whether his fellow villagers will vote for him.

“People are afraid because they are being pressured with their jobs,” he told BIRN.

The candidate calls the road paving a delayed project, while he thinks that the asphalt being laid in every village will not affect the May 11 vote.

"People are tired of the same old methods of delivering basic services on the eve of the campaign, they are not being lied to anymore," he concluded./BIRN