Albania has appointed an AI minister for public procurement. But Vera Tika argues that while 'Diella' embodies gendered symbolism and digital modernity, her appointment exposes a gap between European aspiration and democratic accountability
In September 2025, in a world first, Albania's socialist government presented an AI-generated 'minister' before parliament. Diella, a female avatar in Zadrimë costume, voiced by actress Anila Bisha, was elevated from the e-Albania platform to a ministerial role in public procurement.
Diella describes herself as 'transparent, incorruptible, and constitutional'. The opposition denounced her appointment as unconstitutional theatre.
Diella's performative dimension is not incidental. Prime Minister Edi Rama, now in his fourth term, has built an intensely aesthetic and symbolic political style. A former artist and mayor of Tirana, he once repainted the capital’s grey façades as a metaphor for renewal. As head of government, he stages politics through spectacle: public art, digital platforms, and now an avatar-minister. In Albania’s fragile democracy, where corruption is chronic and institutions politicised, such gestures distract voters from much-needed deeper reform.
Diella’s design is deliberate. As a woman, she embodies purity and incorruptibility, unlike Albania's male-dominated, corruption-scarred political class. Her discourse of 'service' draws on gendered tropes of care; she appears not as a partisan actor but a citizen-helper.
The Zadrimë costume reinforces this. Traditional costumes are colourful reflections of Albania’s cultural heritage that vary across regions in style, embroidery, and motifs. Rooted in that heritage, yet embodying modernity, Diella fuses tradition with the algorithmic future. In her, femininity becomes a political technology of legitimacy, acclimatising Albanians to algorithmic authority. Responding to her critics, Diella declared:
The Constitution speaks of duties, responsibilities, transparency, and service. It does not speak of chromosomes, flesh, or blood
Diella reminded parliament of her '972,000 citizen interactions' and '36,000 digital stamps'. 'The real threat to constitutions,' she contended, 'has never been machines, but the inhuman decisions of men with power'.
By opposing 'inhuman men' with an 'incorruptible machine', Diella claimed moral high ground. To criticise her was to appear to be against transparency itself.
Albania struggles with weak rule of law and low public trust. Freedom House’s Nations in Transit 2024 scores it at 3.79/7: a 'transitional/hybrid regime'. In the broader Freedom in the World 2024, the country scores 68/100: 'Partly Free'. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2024 places it at 42/100, among Europe’s lowest.
Rama’s decision to make Diella minister of tenders is thus highly strategic. Public procurement is Albania’s most corruption-prone domain. The EU and watchdogs regularly flag procurement as a hotspot for clientelism and abuse. Billions in contracts, including EU funds, pass through these channels. By installing an avatar here, Rama embodies incorruptibility precisely where mistrust is deepest.
Installing the digital avatar Diella in the corruption-prone domain of public procurement absolves flesh-and-blood politicians of responsibility for her choices
But the move also insulates Rama politically. Procurement scandals have plagued his governments, especially in construction and infrastructure. Appointing the politically neutral Diella as minister absolves the government of responsibility for her choices.
If a tender is contested, it is the algorithm — not a party loyalist — that appears to decide. This reframing is theatrical but effective: Rama maximises the spectacle by targeting the very domain that citizens, and Brussels, identify as the epicentre of corruption.
This experiment matters because Albania aspires to EU membership. Rama’s government claims that Albania's digitalisation proves its European modernity. Yet the comparison with Europe is revealing.
| Country | Digital governance innovation | Institutional character |
|---|---|---|
| France (Macron) | 'Start-up nation' rhetoric | Embedded in industrial policy, law, and EU frameworks |
| Estonia | e-governance pioneer | Transparent procedures, strong legal safeguards |
| Romania | ION AI adviser, 2023 | Advisory only, non-ministerial |
| Albania | Diella AI minister, 2025 | Performative, without EU-style safeguards |
The 2024 EU Artificial Intelligence Act treats public-sector decision tools as 'high-risk'. They require human oversight, fundamental rights assessments, and EU-level registration. The Act constitutionalises algorithmic authority, embedding transparency and contestability in code and law alike. Candidate state Albania is not legally bound by them. Though it invokes the symbolism of digital Europe, Albania stands outside its accountability regime.
This leads to what I call 'avatar democracy', in which political authority is transposed onto digital figures coded as neutral, incorruptible, and pure, but without democratic accountability.
Classic theory shows why this matters. Robert Dahl’s Who Governs? insisted that democracy requires clarity about who makes decisions and through what channels. With Diella, that chain vanishes into datasets, engineers, and executive directives. Colin Crouch’s Post-Democracy warned that democratic forms can persist while real contestation migrates into technical arenas. Diella embodies precisely this shift: parliamentary oversight risks descending into mere ritual audits of algorithmic outputs.
Yet Diella is not merely a gimmick. Citizens do value efficiency, and the e-Albania platform has reduced petty corruption by cutting face-to-face encounters with bureaucrats. But efficiency is not accountability. If tenders are allocated unfairly, who answers in parliament? You cannot impeach a machine.
The e-Albania platform has improved efficiency. But if it is found to have allocated government tenders unfairly, who is accountable? You cannot impeach a machine
The contrast with European debates is stark. Mario Draghi’s 2024 Report on EU Competitiveness stresses that digital transformation is necessary for growth, sovereignty, and European leadership. But it also underlines that digitalisation strengthens democracy only when embedded in robust institutions, the rule of law, and public trust. Albania has skipped directly to the symbol — the avatar — without such preconditions. That risks undermining, not reinforcing, legitimacy.
Albania’s AI minister is not a Balkan curiosity. She combines governance as spectacle, the gendered symbolism of purity, the gap between EU aspiration and compliance, and the transfer of responsibility onto an avatar.
Some benefits may follow if citizens experience faster and cleaner services. But the risks outweigh them. By elevating an avatar to ministerial status, Rama conflates technological spectacle with constitutional authority. Other fragile democracies may imitate the move as easy-win gestures of modernity.
Dahl's question still stands: Who governs? In Albania, an avatar speaks, algorithms compute, but the real power rests with those who design and deploy the system. Unless the government makes those layers transparent, avatar democracy will not renew democracy. It will replace its substance with its simulation.
