The Battle For Algeria

ALGERIA

The Battle for Algeria

Widespread demonstrations, followed by the loss of military support, forced former Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who’s 82 and seriously ailing, to resign earlier this month after 20 years in power.

Interim President Abdelkader Bensalah has scheduled a new election for July 4, reported Al Jazeera. But the protesters and others who helped bring an end to Bouteflika’s harsh, corrupt rule still aren’t satisfied.

“The old invalid is gone, but if Algeria is to move to ‘the better future’ that Mr. Bouteflika … wrote about in his resignation letter, then much bigger changes are needed,” the Economist wrote.

Bensalah, 77, was in the sights of protesters who took to the streets in recent days demanding an end to “Le Pouvoir” – French for “the power,” meaning the establishment class. Under the law, he can’t run for re-election. He was a Bouteflika ally, however, associated with a group of leaders who have run the country since fighting to end French colonial rule in the 1960s.

“Algerians refuse all the old figures who are at the root of the corruption that prevailed in the country,” civil activist Messaoud Boudiba told Bloomberg, adding that he was skeptical Bensalah could hold a fair and legitimate ballot. “Elections under current conditions means reproducing the same political system because there will be no evidence of transparency,” according to Algiers University political analyst Louisa Aid Hamadouche.

Many Algerians also fear the military might seek to step into the vacuum left after Bouteflika and his cronies pass into history.

Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah was instrumental in ending the president’s tenure in office, for example. But he has recently spoken on political topics, like how he supported elections, and mused about whether Bouteflika’s cabal might face prosecution, the Washington Post reported. That’s not exactly an apolitical stance.

Indeed, Middle East Monitor noted that one of the few serious candidates for the July 4 election is an ex-general.

The military has run the country before, Foreign Affairs explained. In fact, Bouteflika took office to bring an end to the so-called “dark decade” that began in 1992, when the army canceled the country’s first multiparty legislative elections to prevent an Islamist victory, triggering a civil war that ended with the Islamists mostly vanquished.

Taking office in 1999, Bouteflika promised “national reconciliation” after the bloodshed. In a resignation letter released after he stepped down on April 2, he asked the Algerian people for forgiveness, imploring them “to stay united, and never divide yourselves.”

His friends and his former generals should read that letter very, very closely.