Edi Rama, the longest-serving socialist premier since Hoxha

Edi Rama is the socialist who won the office of Albanian prime minister for the fourth consecutive time, becoming the country's longest-serving leader after Enver Hoxha. He has campaigned for entry into Europe, a goal that should be met by 2030 (although some experts doubt the country will have everything in place by then), and against corruption, a charge hanging over the head of his now-defeated rival Sali Berisha. Rama is also the socialist who had a former Trump advisor - Chris LaCivita, recruited by Berisha - against him in the election campaign, but who did business with the US president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Indeed, it was a few months ago that news broke of Kushner's $1.4 billion investment in an Albanian desert island, Sazan, a project for a luxury resort approved by Rama. Who is of course also the prime minister who concluded the agreement with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on the disputed migrant centres transferred from Italy to Albania.

Rama praised Trump and welcomed his disruptive approach to global politics as a wake-up call for Europe, the premier told Bloomberg News in an interview last month.

A painter turned politician, Rama, writes the daily Ekathimerini, is intelligent, has excellent communication skills, is an intellectual (he spends hours painting in his studio), he is self-confident enough not to worry about being made fun of (as when he appeared in a red and white shoe or kilt, or when he showed up in casual clothes in Brussels) and is a source of out-of-the-box ideas that attract international attention (such as the one for the creation of an autonomous Bektashi state, a mystical Islamic order, within Albania). But he is also very prone to intrigue, is arrogant and vindictive, and capable of sacrificing even his closest associates if he feels they pose a threat to his power, as was the case with the arrest and imprisonment for corruption of his alleged heir, Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj (Bloomberg recalls, however, that Rama's party defended Veliaj by claiming that the investigation against him was politically motivated in view of the vote).

Rama has fought the negative reputation Albania has in much of Western Europe, that of being just another backward, ex-communist nation desperately trying to make the transition to modernity, through tourism above all. The central mission of Rama's career - indeed, of his entire adult life - is to bridge the gulf that separates his country from the rest of the continent. It is a goal as existential as it is political.'I found myself trapped in politics as a daily activity through an obscure cog in the universe,' Rama told Foreign Policy in an interview a few years ago. His office was eccentrically decorated, with wallpaper designed by himself and a grey bust of former US President Abraham Lincoln scanning an open book of Donald Trump's worst tweets. A prolific painter, art professor and activist before entering politics, Rama declared in that interview that a life dedicated to politics was never his aspiration. His opponents claim that his eccentricity serves mainly to distract from his ever-growing grip on government.

In the 1980s, Rama attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Tirana and longed to see the paintings he was studying live. Thus, the imposing, two-metre tall art student joined the national basketball team. Travelling with the team around Europe, the young Rama carved out opportunities to see the paintings of those painters his professors deemed "reactionary, schizophrenic and psychopathic" such as Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso in museums.