TIRANA, Sept. 8 – With both national coalitions promising to build the Arber Road Highway as a key pillar of their platform in Sunday’s Dibra mayoral by-elections, activists who have fought for two decades to have the highway built remain skeptical.
“Since 2005, both parties have promised to build Arbri Road, saying they will finish it within their first mandate. After 11 years we are hearing the same promise,” says Bujar Karoshi, an activist who publishes a newspaper in support of the project. “We need action not words.”
The highway would make it much faster to connect Tirana with Dibra and neighboring Macedonia, but it would involve building a completely new highway in some very tough mountainous terrain at a very high cost.
A major tunnel and bridge have to be constructed to complete the project.
Both the Democrats and Socialists say they will build the highway, but both parties have not been able to move the project forward when they have been in power.
Most recently, the Socialist-government failed to complete talks with a Chinese company interested in building the highway.
Prime Minister Edi Rama told a rally in Dibra he would not leave his post without finishing the highway, hinting he would get it done in a second mandate.
Supporters of the project remain sceptical unless there is a contract and a start of construction on the major tunnel.
