It was non-fundamentalist youth who put up barricades in several parts of Algiers. However the movement was not
The following article looks at the background to the Algerian regime s manoeuvres.
CHAWKI SALHI - June 6, 1991
T HE government has turned the
political liberalization conceded after the October 1988 revolt, and helped along by the determination of the popular movement, to its advantage as a way of legitimizing the implementation of the economic changes required to satisfy the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other imperialist creditors. These reforms include: an end to the state monopoly on foreign trade;
of foreign companies (among them Fiat and Peugeot) setting up in Algeria; changes to the tax system and a massive devaluation of the dinar, leading to a huge drop in living dards; and the progressive closure loss-making state enterprises.
Imperialist satisfaction has expressed itself in Italian, Japanese and French foreign loans which have driven the Algerian debt up from $26bn to $36-$40bn while giving the regime the room to get through the legislative and presidential elections.
At the political level, the regime was able to recover from the shock of the October 1988 youth uprising. The social and democratic movements have been 28 conted, and ohe building of tien spre- contained, mobilizations dispersed or preInternational Viewpoint #209 • June 24, 1991 defend the Saudis whom they receive funds -they decided to take the leadership of the anti-Bush movement. Their militarist bid brought their contradictions March 12-13, 1991 general strike called by the General Union of Algerian Workers (UGTA) in protest against the cost of living. The FIS wanted to ignore or even cripple this strike, but it was 95% followed, signalling the end of the FIS' domination of the popular movement.
The disillusion of the FIS' voters, the Ahmed's Front of Socialist Forces (FFS) in Kabylia, the marginal electoral significance of former president Ahmed Ben Bella, and the absence of any working class or even simply populist alternative meant that Chadli felt confident about fixing June 27 as the date of the legislative elections. Shameless gerrymandering
The opposition had foolishly agreed to a two-round ballot, which would permit the FLN to once again put itself forward as the "saviour of the nation" in the face of the "fundamentalist menace". Shameless gerrymandering, which gives the 1.8 million inhabitants of Algiers 21 seats as against 84 to the same number of people living in FLN-dominated areas, was to
The FIS was slow to grasp that it was of the dimensions of that of October 5, 1988, and was, indeed, opposed by an important part of public opinion out of fear of the fundamentalists.
Democratic opening to continue
Despite the state of emergency, Chadli has promised that the democratic opening will continue: he has even felt obliged to promise a coalition government — with on the Democratic Cultural Assembly (RCD) and the liberals of the PRA — to hold popular discontent in check and prolong his rule for a few years more.
However, while it seems clear that the country will not return to the pre-1988 situation, the population remains discontented. Thus chronic instability is likely for the future.
While the FIS leadership is the most prominent force in the anti-regime movement — as was not the case before 1988 — a significant part of public opinion has reservations about the fundamentalists owing to their record in local administration.
Thus, Algerians have rejected the state of emergency in a contradictory way: people are opposed to the repression, but some feel relief and think that the situation will be more stable. At the same time the fundamentalist domination of the protest movements and the lack of any alternative to them is the source of profound confusion. *
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ALGERIA State of siege