Tirana's incumbent mayor, Anuela Ristani, clashed fiercely with majority councilors during the last meeting of the City Council, in a debate that, more than about cleaning up the city, seemed like a transmission of dissatisfaction coming from higher levels of power. The councilors who attacked her did not seem so much like her opponents as like people who were articulating someone else's nervousness over their heads.
At the height of the debates about the issues of cleaning up and demands for more accountability from local leaders, Ristani exploded at her political advisors.
'You became both the prosecutor and the judge and decided that the director's responsibility is that the contract was not respected. But since you are so capable, sir, please give me the order, come on. And fire me on this occasion and I will be fine. But now, there is no point in talking,' she declared to PSD advisor Krenar Cenollari, in a moment of high tension in the hall.
The strongest clashes have been between Ristan, Cenollari and Hali Valteri, who demanded responsibility for the situation created by the cleaning and operation of Ecco Tirana. Cenollari demanded the dismissal of the company's managers and the holding accountable of those responsible for the situation in the city.
But the way Ristani reacted showed that the debate was not simply administrative. Amidst the ironies, laughter and nervousness in the hall, she seemed more like an official trying to convince someone higher up that the situation is still under control, while the majority advisors were publicly doing what usually happens in the corridors of power: conveying the dissatisfaction of the bosses. And in this story, the problem no longer seemed to be Ecco Tirana or the city's garbage, but the fact that nervousness has begun to descend publicly from the upper floors of power to the City Council hall.
