Albania PM Seeks Advice From Georgia's Saakashvili

Sources in the Albanian government have told Balkan Insight that Georgia's former President, Mikheil Saakashvili, is to join a star-studded line-up of advisers to the government of Edi Rama.

Saakashvili visited Tirana on July 15 on the request of the centre-left government and held meetings with Prime Minister Rama, Deputy Prime Minister Niko Peleshi, the minister of urban development, Eglantina Gjermeni, and the minister of local government, Bledi Cuci.

The meeting was the second between Rama and Saakashvili, since the Socialist-led government took office in September in Tirana.

Rama met Saakashvili on September 27 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, while Saakashvili was still President of Georgia, when both sides expressed interest in cooperating.

Rama declared during that meeting that the Saakashvili was a hero to a young generation of politicians in Albania.  

“What he did for his country was outstanding because he proved that nothing is impossible if one has the vision and the courage to follow it,” Rama said. “We are lucky know because we can learn from his experience,” he added.

Saakashvili said Rama was interested in Georgia’s public sector and police reforms and that the Georgians "would be happy to provide him with experts".

Saakashvili is known in the West as charismatic reformer who curbed petty corruption, tamed the bureaucracy and faced down Russia in a brief war over the break-away regions of South Ossetia and Abkazia in 2008.

But critics at home have accused the former Georgian leader of authoritarian tendencies and of failing to tackle high-level corruption.

After he left office in November, Saakashvili moved to the US as a lecturer at Boston’s...