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An Exception - why the Arab Spring hasn’t reached Algeria?

Global Arab Network - Richard Phelps

Thursday, 24 November 2011 17:05

An_Exception_-_why_the_Arab_Spring_hasnt_reached_Algeria

Global Arab Network - Algeria shares much in common with other states that have witnessed popular uprisings during the course of the ‘Arab Spring’. Yet Algeria itself has been largely unaffected. Though it is by no means immune from discontent, the reason thus far for the revolution’s failure to gain traction appears to lie with the structure of the ruling regime.

The ‘Arab Spring’ may be better defined by its shared causes than by its consequences. No two states have met with similar experiences: the uprising has been democratic and peaceful in Tunisia, massive and symbolic in Egypt, bloody in Libya, and crushed in Bahrain. On the one hand, Algeria’s political system shares characteristics in common with other Arab states that have witnessed recent uprisings: it is a republic, which have been disproportionately affected; it is North African, so its citizenry may draw inspiration from their neighbours in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia; it has a history of popular dissent and revolution; and most importantly it has a large supply of urban youth disaffected by the regime’s corruption, authoritarianism, and failure to provide jobs and services and Islamists to provide the ‘muscle’, as in Tahrir Square. For all this, protests in Algeria have not escalated into a serious challenge to the regime.

Despite such similarities, the Algerian regime does not have an identifiable leader with whom political power truly lies. The Gaddafi regime was structured entirely around the caprices of one mercurial leader. Tunisia under Ben Ali was a mafia state orientated around the family of a president who ‘won’ 99 percent elections. Syria still is. Though ailing in later years, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak continued to hold significant power until he was deposed. In all cases, there are clearly other influential forces at work in the country – namely the military, but also a younger generation of business elites – but the leaders in all these countries can still be considered powerful decision makers. This is less so in Algeria.

In Algeria, the incumbent president Abdulaziz Bouteflika is not the ultimate repository of power in the country. Instead, the military and security forces are and always have been. Indeed, the generals have consistently worked to limit his authority and power, and as a result people know that protesting against his rule may uproot him but will not uproot a more shadowy architecture behind him. Municipal elections in 1990 and parliamentary elections in 1991 offered the Algerian people the prospect for a major overhaul, when they voted in the Islamist party the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) across the board, ejecting the long-incumbent National Liberation Front (FLN). But the military stepped in and took over, banned the FIS, and years of brutal civil war ensued after many took part in an uprising against the regime. The trauma of this experience formally confirmed to Algerians what many had always known – that it is the military that is in charge, not the politicians – and it instructed the regime that popular dissent can be successfully crushed through overwhelming and brutal force. Thus the overwhelming security presence at the demonstrations seen to date.

For all its dissimilarities with Algeria, Lebanon is also an Arab republic with a long history of brutal political violence, and it too has been relatively unaffected by the Arab spring. In neither case is there a single identifiable leader in charge: one hears not of ‘Bouteflika’s Algeria’ as one does of ‘Asad’s Syria’, ‘Gaddafi’s Libya’, or ‘Mubarak’s Egypt’. In both cases – Algeria and Lebanon – there is widespread recognition that power does not lie with Presidents and prime ministers. In Lebanon, power is devolved along sectarian lines rather than concentrated in central government. There would therefore, be little sense in protesting against the rule of the government or a particular leader’s regime, since ultimate power does not lie with them.

Earlier this year, the Egyptian military stepped in and took power, after a popular uprising against the regime. The generals’ genuine fear was that if they did not take action, then widespread dissent may translate into a deeper overhaul, threatening their influence. In Algeria, this experience took place two decades ago. To an extent therefore, reluctant as many would be to admit it, Algeria has already experienced an unsuccessful and Islamist-led ‘Arab Spring’. In Egypt the generals have now stepped in; in Algeria they never really stepped out. Unattractive though it seems, the more likely prospect is therefore less that Algeria go ‘the way of Egypt’ then that Egypt may now go towards ‘the way of Algeria’. (cmec)

Global Arab Network
Richard Phelps is an Adjunct Fellow at the Quilliam Foundation.

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