Algeria: Legislative elections - full text
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The three-party ruling coalition in Algeria, each party allied with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, on May 17, 2007, won a reduced majority of seats in legislative elections to the 389-member National Assembly (the lower chamber of the bicameral federal legislature). The pro-regime National Liberation Front (FLN) won 136 seats, whilst the other pro-regime party, the National Democratic Rally (RND), won 61 seats, and the moderate Islamist Movement for the Society of Peace (MSP) won 52. The elections were notable for a low voter turnout of 35 per cent, the lowest in Algeria since multiparty elections were legalised in 1989. The election campaign had been marred by the death of more than 30 people in a series of bomb attacks in Algiers (the capital) on April 11 and in the eastern city of Constantine on May 16. The al-Qaida Organisation in the Islamic Maghrebclaimed responsibility for the attacks in Algiers.
Immediate Context
Elections had been a particularly sensitive political issue in Algeria since the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) won 188 seats in the first round of legislative elections held in December 1991. The FIS was prevented from securing power, however, when the government cancelled the second round of voting, scheduled for January 1992. The cancelled elections forced President Chadli Bendjedid to resign and a five-member High Committee of State (HCS), (effectively a military junta) assumed power. The cancelled elections also triggered a civil war between the government and fundamentalist Islamic groups, during which up to 200,000 people were killed, according to some estimates.
Although voters approved a peace plan (the "civil concord" agreement) in September 1999, some Islamic groups continued to launch attacksagainst civilian and military targets. In January 2005the government announced that the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the second-largest Islamist rebel faction operating in Algeria, was virtually wiped out after government forces had killed or arrested most of its leading members. In September 2006 , however, Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden , announced a "blessed union" between al-Qaida and the Algerian Islamist insurgent movement, the Salafi Group for Call and Combat (GSPC). In January 2007the GSPC renamed itself the Al-Qaida Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb.
Reaction and Outlook
Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said on May 18 that the low voter turnout--and an unusually high number of spoiled ballot papers--demonstrated that "citizens expect politics to adapt more concretely and more convincingly to changes in Algerian society". The low voter turnout was widely attributed to a belief amongst the electorate that President Bouteflika--and not the legislature--yielded meaningful political power in Algeria. Many analysts predicted that the newly installed legislature would support any attempts by Bouteflika to extend his term in office through constitutional amendments.
Historical Context
Algeria was colonised by France in 1830, eventually leading to widespread resentment amongst Algerians of the French invasion and occupation. During World War II, the Allied Powers captured Algeria (and other French colonies in North Africa) as part of their North African campaign, which was launched in November 1942. In January 1946, Abdel Rahman Azzam Pasha, the-then secretary-general of the Arab League, demanded that French forces withdrawfrom North Africa, including Algeria. Nationalist and anti-colonial sentiment continued to grow in the 1950s, prompted mainly by dissatisfaction amongst Algerians over their treatment as second-class citizens by the French colonial government. The Algerian war for independence broke out in November 1954and ended in July 1962, when Algeria finally achieved its independence from French rule.
Ahmed Ben Bellawas elected as Algeria’s first president in September 1963, but his rule was brought to an end in June 1965 when he was overthrown in a bloodless military coup led by Colonel Houari Bou Boumedienne. In a national referendum in November 1976voters approved a new constitution that declared Algeria as a "socialist" state, in which Islam was the country’s recognised religion. Until February 1989, when voters approved sweeping constitutional reforms to introduce multiparty politics, the FLN had held a virtual monopoly on power in post-independence Algeria. The cancellation of elections in January 1992, which had been won by Islamists, prompted the bitter civil war.
