TIRANA, March 30 – Gjergj Bojaxhi, a former manager of Albania’s power corporation and several other state entities, has announced he is running for mayor of Tirana as an independent candidate.
Bojaxhi was formerly affiliated with the Democratic Party but had withdrawn from active politics for several years.
Bojaxhi said that politics had ruined the post of the mayor in the capital, which had consequently suffered due to the political influence.
He said he wanted to give an end to a city “with no sidewalks, no green spaces and no clean air.”
“The city needs a good manager,” he said. “That’s what I offer.”
Bojaxhi said he had been urged to run by a group of intellectuals who are fed up with the political establishment. Polls show only 15 percent of Albanians trust their political parties.
Bojaxhi, a dual citizen of Albania and the United States, is likely to get the votes of educated, middle-class voters disenchanted with the major parties, but no independent candidate has ever been able to make a good showing in Albanian elections, according to analysts.
Albania’s media environment is heavily influenced by political affiliation, and Bojaxhi is getting heavy and positive coverage in the leftist media outlets, while getting little or negative coverage on the media outlets associated with the opposition, indicating the Democratic Party sees his candidacy as a threat while the Socialists see it as an asset, because they hope he will take votes away from the center-right.
