Eurasia Press & News
ALGIERS (Reuters) – Public anger over Gaza has added to economic and political strains in Algeria that will make for an uncomfortable test of nerves ahead of a presidential election in a country with a history of popular unrest.
A steep drop in oil revenue, questions about the integrity of the April vote and anger at perceived official passivity over Israel’s attacks coincide at a delicate time for a top gas exporter rebuilding after a civil war that cost up to 150,000 lives.
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 71, is expected to stand for a third term and win, since no heavyweight rival candidate has emerged, extending a decade in charge of the OPEC member state that supplies a fifth of Europe’s gas imports.
But any development ahead of the vote that triggers social unrest could hit the prestige of his victory, amplify popular distrust of the political process and radicalize Islamist opposition sentiment, analysts say.
“The government must walk a fine line,” said Hamoud Salhi, an Algerian professor of government at California State University.
“I don’t think we’ll see an unstable Algeria, but there are very serious questions to be addressed. There is a sense of great apathy, of not being involved (in Algerian politics).”
Memories have stirred of 1990/91, when opposition Islamists capitalized on a wave of popular support for Iraq during the Gulf War to campaign for Islamic rule at home.
STAGNANT POLITICS
The Islamists’ subsequent efforts to win power in a 1991 parliamentary election were quashed by the army, a move that radicalized a generation of Islamists and set off the civil war.
Today, the well-funded security services are in control and no one expects Algeria to slip back into the chaos of the 1990s.
But a bleak social setting of unemployment and lack of housing means there is no doubting the extent of discontent, and analysts expect a large boycott of the April vote in a sign of public alienation from a stagnant formal politics.
“The great motor of Algerian society and political life is the street,” said sociologist Nacer Jaber.
“The divorce between the street and officialdom, which exists today as background, could develop whenever there is a similar situation” to Gaza, he added.
A question has arisen over the health of the state-dominated economy due to the slump in prices for oil and gas, virtually the only exports, and the ability of the state to fund an $80 billion budget for 2009 without dipping into reserves.
Bouteflika, managing an ambitious $150 billion program of public works, has called the world financial crisis “an economic earthquake”: Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia has said the downturn is a “cold shower” for Algeria that should alert the country to the risk of its dependence on hydrocarbons.
Facing such a complex array of challenges ahead of the poll, the last thing the government needed, analysts say, was a surge in popular mobilization in response to Palestinian suffering.
That is just what it got on January 9 when Algiers saw its first march in eight years in a breach of 17-year-old state of emergency regulations.
Up to 30,000 people massed in the capital in a show of support for Gaza that saw rock-throwing youths charged by baton-wielding police backed by tear gas and water cannon.
Protesters flanked by self-appointed Islamist stewards shouted slogans critical of the Algerian state as well as Israel and demanded the establishment of purist Islamic rule.
“The demonstration broke an imaginary seal on the ban on public protest,” Robert P. Parks, a political scientist who runs the Center of Maghreb Studies in Oran.
“The question is whether the January 9 demo will be replicated, whether the people see what happened that day as a weakening or loosening of the system. A semi-peaceful protest on Gaza turned into an Algeria-focused event.”
ANGER AT DOMESTIC GRIEVANCES
While the event was called because of Gaza, the energy and anger appeared fueled at least in part by domestic grievances.
Communiques from Al Qaeda’s north Africa wing regularly lambaste the government for perceived social and economic injustices, calling on Algerians to solve these problems by joining its armed campaign to overthrow the government.
Anne Giudicelli of Terrorisc consultancy in Paris said the Gaza situation was a boost to al Qaeda everywhere including Algeria, where low-level guerrilla operations continue.
“It’s certain that the ‘Gaza effect’ on terrorist risk is important, and intelligence services are studying this.”
Gaza underscores a diplomatic dilemma for the Algerian state: It applauds the resistance role of the Palestinian group Hamas but has reservations about its Islamist character in view of Algeria’s own bloody struggle with Islamic armed groups.
Analyst Rachid Grim told El Watan daily of the Jan 9 rally: “The government is between the hammer and the anvil.”
“On the one hand it has to perform acts of minimalist solidarity such as humanitarian aide, blood donations, financial help; on the other hand, it would have liked to avoid demonstrations that risk being exploited by Islamists.”
Political scientist Azzedine Layachi said radicalization inspired by Gaza would outlive the end of the conflict.
“This situation could be very bad. There is a complete dislocation between what the people are saying and living through and the discourse of the political sphere.”
