Algeria: What is going on? (Part II)

Part II: Why now? 

So why now? you might ask. After all, Bouteflika secured a 4th term despite his health. Two key factors contributed to the current situation:

1.    This time around, the political establishment could not agree, due to internal rivalries, on a compromise candidate to replace Bouteflika. It was not so much about him having support from parts of the establishment against another part as much as it was about him being a convenient option to allow the different clans to win some time till one of them dominated the other. So, they went for him as the safe bet and put him forward as the candidate of the governing coalition parties for a 5th term. 

2.    The scale of the movement. Had the movement been few thousands or even a couple of ten of thousands concentrated in Algiers, we would probably be going for a sham election on 18 April 2019 with one candidate. The clans within the establishment would have had the time they needed and wanted to sort their differences (or for one of them to finally dominate) and prepare for the after-Bouteflika in a way that would preserve them. The scale of the protests surprised the establishment. Frankly, it surprised all Algerians. In the last protests, and estimated 15 million (others put it at 20 million) protestors/per protest took to the streets. 

The protests led the establishment to panic. First, the authority of those supporting Bouteflika became untenable as their base started getting nervous. To name but some figures: the different syndicates started challenging the leader of UGTA (Sidi Said) – the congress of trade unions - who in one of the interviews looked to the sky when referring to Bouteflika as if he was god. As I started writing this, I learned that he has dropped his support to Bouteflika. FLN, Bouteflika’s own party and whose head had told protestors in early February that they can carry on dreaming about blocking the 5th term, also caved in and declared support to the popular movement four weeks later. Same story with the RND, the other coalition party. Between the FLN and the RND, it is the support of a large majority of the parliament that evaporates. There are also questions with the army chief’s own support base. The same story applies to the business mogul and (until 27 March) head of an influential association of Algerian businessmen who has captured state institutions to enrich himself and his cronies. Slowly dropped by his members, he is now rarely seen expressing his support.

This domino effect, starting from the bottom to reach the top has exposed the fragility of the support system on which the establishment was relying. This further emboldened the protestors. Marches continued to take place and pressure continued to build up from different fronts. And thus, compared to few years ago when protests might have delivered little, it seems now that we are at the crossroads of potentially transformative (in either positive or negative terms) political situation for the country.