Endri Fuga is one of the most popular and richest Politician who was born on November 11, 1981 in Tirana, Albania. Endri Fuga (born in Tirana on November 11, 1981) is the Prime Minister’s Edi Rama Director of Communications and is the person who oversees the media strategy of the current government as well as public policy on public affairs.
Fuga’s relationship with the Prime Minister goes back to the time that Rama was the mayor in Tirana Municipality. Fuga was dubbed an innovator of Albanian Socialist Party communications systems and was also the creator of the left-wing coalition campaign that was marked by the extensive use of digital communication as well as social media. Prior to his appointment as Rama in Tirana’s Municipality of Tirana, Fuga was a civil society advocate and worked closely with his partner and currently the Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj. Tirana Erion Veliaj. Fuga is also contracted as a consultant by various international organizations like USAID, IRI, the Open Society Foundation in different regions around the globe including Europe, Africa, Asia and South America.
Endri Fuga managed the reelection campaign in 2017. Although it was perceived as a very dramatic campaign all the way down to Election Day, mainly because of Edi Rama’s decision to run alone (without any pre election coalitions), the result in the end was a landslide. The Socialist Party led by Rama won 74 seats out of 140, securing a strong majority without the need of any small parties. The whole campaign was perceived as a referendum on Edi Rama’s first four years as Prime Minister. He himself asked of the voters to be able to govern on his own, in order to be able to implement some deep reforms in the public administration and judiciary system that during the first mandate had either been slowed down or hindered because of disagreements with the smaller coalition members. Endri Fuga, as Communications Director and Campaign Manager, was central in relaying this core message to the electorate. He focused the campaign heavily on social media and for the first time he introduced a Facebook-based live television channel, named ERTV after Edi Rama. The whole campaign was broadcast live on ERTV, which also pushed the mainstream media to follow and focus largely on these new modern techniques. Fuga also stressed a lot the importance for the Prime Minister to be seen as an average Albanian. He carefully set up interviews with different journalist that portrayed a different Edi Rama, who was not talking as a politician, but as someone fighting for the everyday problems Albanians face. During the 30 days of the campaign, Edi Rama appeared almost daily on television shows, but most of them were not political. He would be asked about his family, hobbies, interests etc., while the nature of the shows he attended secured record-breaking audiences. During the campaign, Edi Rama mentioned several times the role of Endri Fuga, saying on different occasions during interviews that it was his Communications Director the one who would decide when Edi Rama would be interviewed and by whom. “I do not take any decision”, Rama said during Zone e Lire interview. “It is Endri Fuga who decides”. The 2017 election win was the biggest win by a single party in Albania’s post-communist history. Edi Rama and the socialist received a clear mandate to govern on their own and implement their governing program.
In 2007 Fuga was able to participate in politics and accepted the invitation from the mayor of Tirana, Edi Rama to be his Communications Advisor. His official position as an advisor to Rama included overseeing public relations, as well as keeping in touch with international partners and organizations for Tirana’s Municipality of Tirana. In the course of his work, Fuga was the point of contact between Rama as well as the foreign and local media, playing an important role in changing the image of Rama as a charismatic individual to a charismatic leader. In the period between 2011 and 2013, Fuga served as Director of Communications within the Socialist Party and assumed the post of Strategist in the coalition’s campaign for opposition in the 2013 elections for the parliamentary election. In the 2013 campaign Fuga played the role of in charge of the “brain” behind the usage of a variety of communication tools, which hadn’t been used before in Albania. The wide-spread use of direct marketing, social media as well as the use of the use of focus groups as well as surveys to create an idea were only a few of the innovative strategies used during the campaign. In the 2013 election, Fuga worked alongside Alastair Campbell, UK Prime Minister’s Advisor, Tony Blair and Arthur J. Finkelstein Advisor senior consultant for the Republican Party in the US. Fuga was also among those who co-authored the “Reneissance (Rilindja)” program that was that is the “manifesto” used by the Socialist Party during the elections. In 2013 Fuga was a co-author of the “Renaissance (R Socialist Party won by a massive margin the general election. Following the victory the newly-elected Premier Edi Rama showed the power of Fuga during the campaign by sharing a photo of him saying: “Endri Fuga – The Man who puts Rama in line”
