Last month’s presidential election in Algeria culminated in yet another landslide victory for an incumbent head of state. The country’s predominantly young population, disillusioned with its political leadership, largely abstained, while opposition parties and media leveled charges of electoral fraud against the authorities. Critics of the ruling regime faced systematic intimidation in the run-up to the vote.
This year’s electoral outcome offers more evidence that the 2019 Hirak (“movement”) uprising has been effectively crushed by those in power. At that time, the bid of Abdelaziz Bouteflika for a fifth presidential term, even though he had been confined to a wheelchair since suffering a stroke in 2013 and had barely been able to speak since then, triggered a nationwide popular revolt.
In April 2019, the military dropped its support for Bouteflika as the civilian figurehead of Algeria’s ruling class after six weeks of mass protests. The presidential elections scheduled for that month were ultimately postponed. However, Hirak protests continued unabated across Algeria, now feeding on their new key slogan “Yetnahaw Gaa” (“They all must go”).
The movement refused to accept only superficial changes among the top government personnel and continued to mobilize for real systemic change and an end to the clientelist rule of an elite backed by the police, the army, and the powerful intelligence service. Yet the military kept hold of power and enforced the appointment of ex–housing minister Abdelmadjid Tebboune as the new president in late 2019. The government then exploited the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to drive the Hirak off the streets for good.
More than five years after the revolt began, disillusionment has taken…
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Auteur: Sofian Philip Naceur
