Algeria: political portrait

Résumé du document

The Middle East is a very hot geopolitical region. It has witnessed many different conflicts, some of which remaining unresolved. Although the middle-eastern countries are very different in terms of economic development, I believe they share a common pattern: the regimes are authoritarian in most of these countries.

And as Wiarda mentioned in his book Introduction to Politics, “Oil alone or foreign aid alone does not make for a successful economy or society. Their ‘Arab Socialism' has not been very successful and has served as a legitimizer for some rather authoritarian, even miserable, regimes. (...) None of them have successfully made a transition to democracy or even shown much of wanting to do so” (Wiarda, Introduction to Politics, 2000, p.156). As a matter of fact, the tensions that exist between and within middle-eastern countries arise from their failing political system. Algeria, according to Wiarda, is among the group of “poorer states (of the Middle East)” , along with Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.

How presidential is the Algerian regime? In other words, how powerful is the President? Is the formal power (the president) the actual one?

Extraits

[...] Algeria: political portrait The Middle East is a very hot geopolitical region. It has witnessed many different conflicts, some of which remaining unresolved. Although the middle-eastern countries are very different in terms of economic development, I believe they share a common pattern: the regimes are authoritarian in most of these countries. And as Wiarda mentioned in his book Introduction to Politics, alone or foreign aid alone does not make for a successful economy or society. Their ‘Arab Socialism' has not been very successful and has served as a legitimizer for some rather authoritarian, even miserable, regimes. [...]

[...] Rather, the problem comes from the root of the political system which consists in the rigid contrast between an informal power which runs the country and a formal power which the constitution has provided for but that has not been in measure of imposing its legal role. This dichotomy suggests that Algeria still has many challenges to face, the most important one being the demilitarization of the state and the reassessment of the political and civil system of law. Algeria is far from being a democratic state, but the only step of giving the government its real power will play an important role in reconstructing the Algerian nation and improving the status of the country's foreign relations with the surrounding states. [...]

[...] This is the key to hoping for a better Algerian future. The systematic interventions of the army in the affaires of the state have to be stopped; also, the political parties which are elected have to sit down and agree on a real set of laws that provides each power unit with their rights and duties as well as for the population who still hasn't had the chance to truly express itself without being afraid of the consequences. The judiciary system also needs to become independent, and not under the threatening power of the army. [...]

[...] One would answer that there is a judiciary system that has the role and responsibility of resolving conflicts by applying the law. Well, this is what should be the case in any state; not in Algeria. The judge is completely absent in important conflicts resolutions, because the judge is no more than a simple member of the government, and therefore subject to the hierarchy. Back to the army, whenever the country is going through what the top military would qualify as hard times, they would meet in conclave, which means that no one has access to their meeting. [...]

[...] Well, not really. Actually, there is a historical event behind the absence of freedom of the press, and behind the human rights violations in Algeria. Since 1992, there has been a conflict between the government and the islamist rebels, because the national legislative elections were cancelled after the Islamic party won in the first round; this war made hundreds of thousands of victims (dead and ‘disappeared'). As a result, in 2006, president Bouteflika passed a new law, under the name of “Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation”, in order to offer amnesty for the family of the victims. [...]