Facing economic and political crises, Algeria seems to be teetering on the edge of instability. However, in each area of potential hazard, a combination of historical memory, public apathy and meticulously managed government affairs, for better or worse, indicate stability for the current system.
The ailing health of Algeria’s aging president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, commonly leads Algeria-watchers to assess the prospects for regime continuity and the risks of political instability in what amounts to an interregnum. Both make up chapters of the country’s recent history. Over the past 25 years, Algerians lived through 10 traumatic years of insurgency and counterinsurgency, sometimes called the Dark Decade that shook the country to its foundations from 1991-2002, followed by a decade and a half of peace under Bouteflika.
Bouteflika, along with his predecessor Liamine Zeroual, negotiated the laying down of arms and reconciliation—albeit an imperfect one—among armed groups that brought the bloody conflict to a close, thereby restoring the centrality of the state and the apparent necessity of the status quo. To be sure, much of the state’s post-conflict political capital has been embodied in Bouteflika himself; he is widely credited with delivering Algeria to its prized normalcy and has maintained the presidency since 1999.
However, since the mid-2000s, this political capital has dwindled due to spreading perceptions that the president and his clan have bankrupted the country. Bouteflika’s reputation as a savior was perhaps dealt its deathblow when he stood for, and won, a fourth term in April 2014, despite his advanced age and visibly weakened physical state. In response, several chief members of his circle defected and ranking officials of the Department of Intelligence and Security (DRS) opposed his mandate. Since then, the wheelchair-ridden president has become the subject of satire, ridicule and resentment, particularly in the heavily populated urban centers around the north.
But the regime’s deteriorating legitimacy has made Bouteflika’s eventual demise a worrying prospect. His presence, even enfeebled, represents continuity and stability, while his departure would leave a political void, haunted by uncertainty and the specter of internecine conflict.
To this end, the president’s office and his clique hope to ensure a smooth post-Bouteflika transition. Indeed, Bouteflika’s sustained illness has confirmed theories that the president has lately been a figurehead for his tight-knit coterie, which has become more powerful during his presidency. Many observers believe that when the president does pass away—most expect that to happen before the next election cycle in 2019—his replacement will maintain the grip of Bouteflika’s circle on the executive, while using the support of coopted elements of the opposition, and the many assurances regarding presidential powers enshrined in recent constitutional amendments, to legitimize a claim to “national consensus.”
These machinations toward a managed transition have not gone unnoticed by critics. Citing the potential for instability in light of the current economic crisis, the National Coordination for Liberties and Democratic Transition (CNLTD), Algeria’s main opposition bloc, is calling for elections and reforms that will usher in a more democratic succession. Yet it is important to take these calls for a free and fair transition with a grain of salt.
The wheelchair-ridden president has become the subject of satire, ridicule and resentment, particularly in the heavily populated urban centers around the north.
Political parties in Algeria are popularly seen as part of the “masrahiya,” or political theater, that makes up a crucial element of the status quo. They present a cursory challenge to the figurehead, Bouteflika, but do little to address the more pernicious, entrenched interests of the deep state, including the army and the business giants close to the president. Moreover, as a national-level coalition, the CNLTD—comprised of a hodgepodge of Islamist parties, secular Berber-oriented parties, the Workers’ Party and political figures from past governments—has little credibility among the general population as a genuine opposition. The bloc has been hamstrung by internal contradictions and obvious conflicts of interest, thus producing little more than halfhearted but highly publicized press statements and demands.
Perhaps more importantly, however, many opposition parties are seen as opportunistic. They maintain credibility among supporters by positioning themselves as critics of the regime, while prominent figures within them are actually close to the regime and engage in self-serving relationships with elements of the state intelligence apparatus. All of this combines to provide incentives to perpetuate the political impasse.
Yet Another Constitution
In the interests of maintaining the aforementioned guise of national consensus and reform, the regime introduced a series of constitutional reforms, adopted in February, aimed at lending an air of legitimacy to—and strengthening the executive’s hold on—a future, managed transition. The government amended several articles of the constitution, notably to limit the Algerian president to two terms, and to upgrade the Tamazight, or Berber, language from a “national” language to an “official” language. The cap on presidential terms can be seen as a cosmetic move, meant to provide a veneer of consensus and portray the government as responsive to popular demands. Many in the opposition, however, argue that the amendment misses the mark: Concentrated power, they contend, stems not from the president’s time in office but from “Le Pouvoir,” the shadowy, nebulous structure that comprises military, political and business leaders and, Algerians know, pulls all the strings in government.
Proponents of the reforms welcome them as a sign of progress, but most Algerians eye them with skepticism. This is in part because the revisions were never put to a public referendum, but also because of Algerians’ jadedness from decades of behind-the-scenes regime machinations that have been the status quo since the country won its independence in 1962. Yet another example of the masrahiya: The speaker of the Majlis al-Umma—the upper house of Algeria’s parliament—congratulated legislators for passing the revised constitution before the vote had even occurred. As the public is fully aware that the reforms will be implemented by the elite, and left to elite manipulation, constitutional changes have been met with a great deal of popular indifference.
Bouteflika’s presence, even enfeebled, represents continuity and stability, while his departure would leave a political void, haunted by uncertainty and the specter of internecine conflict.
For their part, Berber, or Amazigh, activists worry about cosmetic measures, appropriation and dissipation of their movements. They fear that the proposed formation of an Amazigh academy, for instance, will have deleterious effects, bringing Amazigh culture and history to the fore, but at the cost of co-opting the Amazigh movements by softening and homogenizing their myriad tendencies.
As for the presidential term limit, voices in the political opposition complain that the limit already existed until it was suspended in 2008 so Bouteflika could make, in the words of his right-hand man Ahmed Ouyahia, the “sacrifice” of running for a third and then a fourth term.
Army Fatigue?
Another way in which the presidential clan has created a veneer of reform is in restructuring and reshuffling the powerful intelligence apparatus. In September 2015, the office of the president retired the longstanding head of the DRS, Gen. Mohamed “Toufiq” Mediene. In November, it sentenced ex-counterterrorism chief Abdelkader Ait-Ouarabi, known as Gen. Hassan and a friend of Mediene’s, to five years in prison for possessing weapons stockpiles, but also for “forming an armed group” in the 1990s, a tactic that in fact allowed the DRS to infiltrate and defeat Islamist insurgent groups during the civil war. Finally, it arrested Gen. Hocine Benhadid for “disclosure of military secrets and defamation.”
The public is fully aware that the reforms will be implemented by the elite, and left to elite manipulation.
This restructuring of the security apparatus and the highly public trials and sentencing of once God-like generals represent an effort to create the impression of the military’s accountability to the state and the Algerian people. It is also meant to create a perception of the military’s professionalization, while forging the image of a strong civil state, an ever-elusive talking point in Algeria. The military and the DRS continue to be central in maintaining the country’s cherished security, both real and perceived, and the DRS is subject to a great deal of mythology, even folklore, surrounding its omniscience.
But the government knows it can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater: In spite of this presidential jockeying, the DRS has long been an important powerbroker and kingmaker. After all, Mediene was replaced by his own protégé, Gen. Athmane Tartag, a marker of this institutional and ideological continuity. Instead, the moves should be seen as an attempt by the president and his clan to rein in the role of the intelligence services and the military in domestic politics. This is not a new phenomenon, as Bouteflika has long enjoyed a more empowered presidency than his predecessors. Having improved the nation’s security, the military no longer had a pretext for prolonging its outsized presence in civilian politics. Indeed, Bouteflika’s first presidential campaign included the promise of not being “three-fourths president”—that is, not deferring to military rule. And throughout his tenure Bouteflika has worked to lessen the military’s involvement in domestic affairs.
In another vein, the president’s recent efforts to reorganize the security services are an attempt, albeit superficial, to tip the scales in his favor in advance of succession or the 2019 elections—whichever comes first. The removal of its top leaders weakened the DRS’ potential brokering role in the succession. In the meantime, Bouteflika has also deliberately strengthened the national police, which in addition to having been given a greater role in matters of domestic security, has been modernized and trained on intelligence matters once solely the domain of the DRS. This past January, the executive office re-designated the DRS as the Direction of Security Services and restructured it, putting it under the authority of the president instead of the Ministry of Defense, while removing the army from the intelligence service’s command.
By accepting to march to this drum, the DRS has been able to project an image of magnanimity in the face of the executive’s assertion of the rule of law, illustrating its own commitment to the discourse of developing the civil state, and perhaps strengthening its own hand in the process.
Economic Crisis and Political Implications
These gestures aimed at lending credibility to regime continuity have occurred against the backdrop of a steadily worsening economic and fiscal situation. With oil revenues running low, Algeria’s foreign exchange reserves are being quickly depleted. The government has responded with a controversial finance law that includes austerity measures that effectively scale back the decades-old system of rents distribution. Since the prosperous 1970s, when oil was nationalized, the distribution of oil revenues has been central to the country’s social contract, primarily through subsidies and the socialization of key service provisions. In this regard, the president’s clan also hopes to minimize the shock of scaling back subsidies by gradually increasing prices in targeted sectors while maintaining spending in particularly vulnerable sectors like housing and education.
In August 2015, the president’s office conducted a large meeting of walis, or governors, to instruct them on which public programs to cut and other changes in state budget allocations. But the occasion, highly publicized in both state and independent media, was a means also to alert the Algerian public of impending economic belt-tightening, in order to pre-empt the potential chaos that sudden or unannounced cuts could produce.
Two of Bouteflika’s longtime associates, Amar Saadani of the National Liberation Front party (FLN) and Ahmed Ouyahia of the National Rally for Democracy party (RND), spent most of 2015 seeking to generate support among political parties for his controversial economic plan and constitutional proposals, but in vain: On Nov. 30, 2015, the parliamentary session over the proposals ended in all-out physical altercations, as typically restrained and coopted opposition parties seem to have drawn their lines in the sand over the measures. The proposals passed and have been implemented, and in early October, Bouteflika introduced another finance bill to curb public spending.
The opposition charges that the policies run counter to Algeria’s socialist values: While intended as targeted and incremental removals of subsidies, the measures will in fact hurt the poor and benefit the oligarchs. They also decry the fact that there is no serious talk of economic diversification, and that the constitutional reforms grant too much executive decision-making power to the finance minister alone.
Moreover, as innumerable scholars and observers have noted, near-constant local-level protests have become Algeria’s new normal. The eastern city of Setif saw major protests in late June against unjust practices in public housing assignments and allocations—a perennial local-level problem throughout the country. In the eastern city of Annaba in mid-June, citizens protested the government’s crackdown on informal trade and illegal smuggling, from which many families benefit, if often indirectly. Several protesters died in clashes with police, as they demanded dialogue on the matter with local authorities. In the oft-troubled Kabyle region in mid-June, hundreds of youth protesters clashed with police and were shot with rubber bullets following the arrest of four young activists from the now-diminished separatist group the Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylie. The peaceful protest spiraled into violence after police responded with force.
Meanwhile, the regime has acted increasingly insecure vis-à-vis public criticism. While Algeria has long had a relatively freer media than other countries in the region, with journalists, anchors and social media users operating relatively free of censorship, the state blocked social media for a full week in July, during the latest period of heightened protest around the country. Three TV satirists were arrested in late June, and several are in jail for Facebook posts critical of the state. The crackdowns have been justified under spurious pretexts. Often, such prisoners are jailed in the west and south of Algeria, where news of their whereabouts is difficult to come by. As a contact in the defense industry confided, “The state is out of solutions. They know unrest is coming up.”
This is in the context of a precarious youth bulge: Nearly 70 percent of Algerians are under the age of 30, and youth unemployment, though lowered on Bouteflika’s watch, remains high. That leaves “hittistes”—literally young men who lean against the wall—with little to do and much idle time.
Democracy Weary
Algeria might seem to be having a case of déjà-vu. When oil prices began to drop in the 1980s, the state responded with a partial liberalization policy, reducing subsidies and retreating from service provision. Compounding matters, the generation that had fought in or lived through the war for independence had begun to die off, and the nationalist discourse of the FLN—then still the only legal political party—had much less sway and even raised skepticism among the rising generations.
Near-constant local-level protests have become Algeria’s new normal.
This mixture led to a breakdown in trust between the state and polity that led to the October 1988 riots, in which masses of people demanded political opening and economic reform, producing the region’s earliest attempts at political liberalization. The Algerian government abolished the single-party system in 1989 in a new constitution passed by referendum. Meanwhile, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), an Islamist party, had harnessed popular disillusionment and seized the new political opening, emerging as a victor in the first multiparty parliamentary elections in 1992. In response to the party’s success, the military declared a state of emergency and canceled the election results in a coup. The ensuing civil war, as well as the strength, ferocity and pervasiveness of the armed insurgency, threatened state failure.
Is this history repeating itself? While memory of the 1990s may be fading among the younger generations, the Dark Decade’s mark on Algerian politics has left the country in a considerably different place than it was 28 years ago. The political-military victories of the state in the late 1990s brought about a sort of “pyrrhic peace”: The profound trauma lingers, compounded by unresolved questions about who was accountable for the violence.
Memory of the suffering of the 1990s has informed a general political preference for stability and security on the part of the Algerian polity. This has only been strengthened by recent events in Algeria’s neighborhood. Libya is a failed state serving as the so-called Islamic State’s base in North Africa, with some areas under the group’s control. Tunisia has seen its pluralist accomplishments marred by unprecedented terrorism and tragedy; Tunisians also represent one of the largest contingents of foreign fighters with the Islamic State and other extremist factions in Iraq and Syria. The emergence of this increased extremist activity against the backdrop of political liberalization in neighboring states is glaring for many Algerians.
So while the disenchantment currently on display in the country might appear to augur unrest, in the Algerian context it instead seems to have had the opposite effect for now, affirming the public’s security-centered political preferences. As I have argued before, the jaded populace has foregone any hankering for democracy—something many see as an ill-defined buzzword—in favor of issue-specific demands. These boil down to making sure Algerians at large do not pay the costs of myopic economic planning on the part of those in power. This explains why the hyper-localized, issue-centered protests have not translated into mass protests against the Algerian regime. As one Algerian put it, “Give me something tangible, that I can hold in my hand. Give me bread and gainful employment, not democracy.”
Vish Sakthivel is a Robert A. Fox fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). She is also a doctoral candidate at Oxford University, writing her dissertation on Islamism in Algeria, where she recently lived for one year.
Source: As the Bouteflika Era Ends, Crisis or Continuity for Algeria?
