ASSESSMENTS

Algeria's Transition Gets an Electoral Litmus Test

Dec 9, 2019 | 10:30 GMT

Algerian demonstrators carry placards reading "This vote will never take place" in French in regard to the Dec. 12 presidential election, during a march in Algiers on Dec. 6, 2019.

Algerian demonstrators carry placards reading "This vote will never take place" in French in regards to the Dec. 12 presidential election, during a march in Algiers on Dec. 6, 2019. Algeria's establishment is desperate to hold elections on time; the country's protest movement, by contrast, is desperate to prevent them.

(RYAD KRAMDI/AFP via Getty Images)

Highlights

The Dec. 12 presidential election will provide a litmus test of whether Algeria's emboldened political opposition can eke out a new political paradigm or whether the Algerian political elite will maintain the status quo that benefits them.
Because members of the elite, including the powerful military, need to fill the vacant presidency in order to help preserve their own political capital and legitimacy, they are pushing for elections faster than the opposition wants.
The country's power brokers are willing to make small concessions but not overhaul the political system as demanded by the opposition, a dynamic bound to stir more friction in the coming year.

In Algeria, elections are not the same as democracy, at least as far as the country's opposition is concerned. On Dec. 12, the country is scheduled to hold a presidential election following two previous delays, in spite of opposition demands that authorities hold off until they implement deeper reforms following the ouster in April of longtime President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. For one, the elections will test what Algerian activists and the opposition are willing to accept from the interim government in terms of political reform following 10 months of protests. Second, the elections will test just how far the Algerian military and security forces are willing to go to subdue the opposition if the latter rejects the government's overtures -- in this case, rush elections. How the poll plays out will show whether the protest movement can force a new political paradigm and continue to extract small concessions from the political...

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