Algerian Rulers Aim For Return To Established Order With Election

Algeria’s president and the generals backing him hope Saturday’s parliamentary election will mark an end to two years of upheaval, but in the capital’s steep, winding streets few people seemed enthused.

While thousands of candidates rallied supporters at official campaign events for an election that moderate Islamist parties aim to win, the low turnout in recent national votes has underscored public scepticism for the process.

“I won’t vote because nothing will change. Nothing at all,” said Khadidja, a woman in a facemask and pink headscarf speaking near a wall plastered with election posters.

The vote comes weeks after the security forces stamped out the last demonstrations by a mass protest movement that erupted in 2019 and forced veteran president Abdelaziz Bouteflika from office and prompted official promises of change.

On Friday Amnesty International said the arrests of two prominent journalists, Khaled Drareni and Ihsane El Kadi, as well as opposition figure Karim Tabbou, were evidence of “a chilling escalation” in the clampdown on dissent.

Looming behind the political manoeuvring and public unrest is the largely closed, state-run economy. Foreign currency reserves have fallen by 80% since 2013, as energy revenues declined, pushing state finances towards disaster.

Any economic collapse in Algeria, a regional military power, Africa’s biggest country and with a long Mediterranean coastline, could endanger stability beyond its own shores.

Though Bouteflika’s replacement Abdelmadjid Tebboune was elected president in 2019 and an amended constitution was approved in a referendum last year, many Algerians believe the security and military establishment still retains real power.

The establishment believes replacing the old president, parliament and constitution, coupled with the jailing of numerous Bouteflika cronies, is the best way to end the biggest crisis in decades, said a former senior official.