Tirana, Nov 13 (Tirana Echo) – An Albanian taxi driver who painted his car with electoral posters of Donald Trump for President in September, predicting the US elections winner has become a local hero across Albania’s social networks and media outlets.
Last September, Uljan Kolgjegja, 37, an Albanian taxi driver, showed his car covered with U.S. Republican candidate Donald Trump posters in the Albanian capital, Tirana, being one of the few people outside the US who believed that Trump would be President.
According to Associated Press, taxi driver Kolgjegja said he was prompted to decorate his taxi with pictures of the Republican candidate after Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama said Trump could be “a real threat to Albanian-American ties.”
The move has attracted attention in the capital Tirana and Kolgjegja said he was earning more money than ever before in his 13 years as a taxi driver.
In a prophetic statement two months before the historic US elections, an Albanian taxi driver predicted that Trump would win, not hiding his belief that the new President would bring new hopeful developments around the world.
“Look at the world now, full of wars and (President Barack) Obama and Clinton, who worked for him too, have not done much,” he said in September. “Trump will make a change.”
Albania is counted amongst America’s strongest supporters and allies in the world with over 90% of Albanians being supported of US foreign policy, even during George Bush’s terms when he attacked Afghanistan and Iraq.
The small Balkan country has been embraced by a fierce internal political debate after Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama interfered in an unprecedented manner with the US electoral campaign . Asked by CNN’s Richard Quest last March, Rama said: “God forbid – it would harm America a lot, and it would harm the democratic world. The anti-Islam rhetoric of Donald Trump and others in Europe are really the shame of our civilization.”
Since Trump’s elections, Edi Rama did not hide his disappointment over Clinton’s defeat while he lukewarmly congratulated Trump.
“The American people have made their choice, and Clinton will not become the first woman president. Her opponent, Donald Trump, has become the 45th president of the U.S. I am convinced that our strategic relations with the U.S. will continue to strengthen in view of our shared values and interests. Albania is a friend and an ally of the U.S. government,” he said in a Facebook status.
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