Crisis and transformation in post-Bouteflika Algeria

ABSTRACT

Algeria faces a renewed conjunction of political-economic crisis and widespread popular discontent. Making sense of the current situation requires a careful consideration of the social structure of accumulation that governs the country’s domestic affairs. This institutional arrangement has undergone a notable transformation since the previous crisis of 2015–16, but it continues to be inimical to sustained growth and stable governance.

Keywords:

• Algeria
• crisis
• protest
• military

Eight years ago, Algeria found itself engulfed in ‘an acute multi-dimensional crisis’, which jeopardized the country’s internal stability and external security alike (Hamouchene & Rouabah, 2016, p. 669). The crisis arose from a conjunction of ‘entrenched corruption’ on the part of a tightly intertwined administrative and military elite, the evident ‘absence’ of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika from public policy-making, a surge in ‘intra-elite power struggles’–particularly among rival branches of the security apparatus – and a marked ‘slump in [world] oil prices’. This situation prompted state officials to initiate a further round of economic deregulation and privatization, whilst implementing ‘harsh austerity measures’ that ended up disproportionately ‘punishing the pauperized and the working classes’ (Hamouchene & Rouabah, 2016, p. 676).

Algeria’s prospects look little brighter today. Gross fixed capital formation, which stayed largely stable from 2015 to 2018, plunged more than 6 per cent in 2019 and a further 15 per cent in 2020. Gross public debt soared from around 15 per cent of gross domestic product in 2015 to 40 per cent in 2018 to just over 50 per cent in 2020. Foreign currency reserves, which totalled some USD 200 billion in 2014, collapsed to around USD 47 billion in 2020. The International Monetary Fund estimates that in order for the government to balance the budget, world oil prices would need to reach USD 170 per barrel – almost double what they averaged throughout 2021.

Meanwhile, protesters have taken to the streets en masse to demand fundamental political and economic change. Widespread popular discontent survived the April 2019 ouster of President Bouteflika and subsequently focused on the shadowy cluster of senior state officials, high-ranking military commanders and deeply entrenched party politicians that the Algerian populace calls ‘The Powers That Be’ (le Pouvoir). Half-hearted attempts by the new head of state, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, to reintroduce the modest institutional reforms that had been proposed at the time of the 2010–11 Arab uprisings have merely stoked public anger.

Algeria’s current crisis can at first blush be traced to the failure of world oil prices to rebound from the plunge that occurred in 2014. But it also reflects changes in three components of the country’s social structure of accumulation (SSA), which shapes how the revenues derived from hydrocarbons exports affect the prospects for sustained economic growth and political stability. The first component is the degree to which the ruling coalition exercises control over the labour movement; second is the extent of military involvement in the domestic economy; and third is whether relations between civilian agencies of the state and the armed forces exhibit harmony and collaboration or antagonism and rivalry. All three of these components are quite different now from what they were eight years ago.

Labour activism

Relations between Algeria’s ruling coalition and the labour movement changed profoundly during the course of the 2015–16 crisis. The state-affiliated organization that had dominated workers’ affairs from the time of independence in 1962, the General Union of Algerian Workers (UGTA), lost whatever remained of its influence over government policy-making and its authority to champion labourers’ concerns. In its place rose an assortment of workers’ and professional associations that operated outside the purview of the UGTA, some of which were initially sponsored by the state. Members of these independent unions soon started to engage in collective actions that straddled the boundary between economic and political contention, and that devoted greater attention to local grievances than to nation-level problems.

So long as the labour movement consisted primarily of workers in the heavy industrial, hydrocarbons and transportation sectors, who were almost entirely public sector employees supervised by the UGTA, The Powers That Be could exercise a high degree of control over labour activism. The steady contraction of the UGTA greatly diminished the ruling coalition’s ability to constrain and direct workers’ energies, and in the aftermath of the 2015–16 crisis the growing number of independent unions launched strikes, walk-outs and marches with greater frequency and increasing boldness. These demonstrations attracted large numbers of unemployed and under-employed young people who, along with civil rights proponents and university students, coalesced to form the grass-roots protest movement known as al-Hirak.

As al-Hirak gathered momentum in the early spring of 2019, scattered components of the UGTA joined the protests. Public utilities workers took to the streets, interrupting the supply of electricity and natural gas to industrial plants as well as to households. Dock workers at the ports of Oran and Bejaia walked off the job. Widespread labour mobilization prompted the owners of several major private companies to express support for the protesters, with one of the largest such enterprises announcing that it stood ‘united with the movement for a general strike chosen by civil society to demand a change to the system’. Sporadic protests even broke out at hydrocarbons installations in the far south operated by the state-run energy conglomerate SONATRACH. By mid-March the independent workers’ and professional unions had started to co-ordinate their activities, putting more pressure on the authorities.

Bouteflika’s forced resignation did little to quash labour militance. A UGTA-affiliated union of hydrocarbons and energy workers announced that it would carry out its plans to strike despite the president’s abrupt departure. Thirteen workers’ and professional associations affiliated with the newly formed Autonomous General Confederation of Algerian Workers (CGATA) organized a succession of demonstrations in April and May, calling for political reform and a new constitution. At the same time, UGTA-affiliated steel and automotive workers demanded the resignation of the federation’s long-time head; dissidents inside the UGTA set up four regional branches that openly backed al-Hirak. CGATA launched a one-day strike in late October to express opposition to the presidential election scheduled for early December and demand the reinstatement of hundreds of employees who had lost their jobs in textile manufacturing and construction. UGTA members gathered a week later outside the offices of the Council of Ministers to denounce the loosening of regulations governing hydrocarbons exploration and production. A general strike in early December 2019 brought together components of the CGATA, the UGTA and al-Hirak in an effort – which proved unsuccessful – to disrupt the presidential balloting.

After a year of suspended animation due to the COVID-19 epidemic, labour activism erupted once again in January 2021 in the hydrocarbons-producing area around the southern city of Ouargla. The protests gained strength and turned violent a month later, after a leader of the flare-up was sentenced to seven years in prison for engaging in what the authorities termed ‘terrorism’. Strikes and walk-outs over wages, job security, retirement benefits and the right to organize broke out across the country as spring turned to summer. These actions by independent unionists and dissident UGTA cadres displayed a higher level of co-ordination than did the workers’ protests that had taken place during 2019, even as unity deteriorated among the unemployed persons, civil rights advocates and students who made up al-Hirak.

In response to these developments, The Powers That Be cracked down hard on al-Hirak. Riot police flooded the streets; demonstrators were physically and sexually assaulted; thousands were arrested and imprisoned; opposition parties and civil rights organizations were shut down; activists were charged with belonging to terrorist cells sponsored by foreign powers, including Morocco, France and Israel. The brutal suppression of al-Hirak aggravated fissures inside the protest movement and prompted it to suspend activity once again in July 2021. During the lull, large numbers of disenchanted young people fled to Europe.

Discontent nevertheless continued to percolate among workers. Contract labourers staged a demonstration outside the Ministry of Solidarity in March 2022 to demand permanent employment. The CGATA called a general strike a month later to protest soaring food prices and ‘the deterioration of public services’; the strike was joined by salaried government employees and health professionals. Railway workers walked out in early October. But by that time a rebound in income from hydrocarbons exports had begun to replenish the state treasury, allowing officials to placate the public by reinstating subsidies on food and fuel. It remains an open question whether the influx of funds will enable the UGTA leadership to reinstate a modicum of discipline over the labour movement.

Military industry

Meanwhile, a transformation has taken place in the structure of Algerian industry: The armed forces now plays a significant role in this sector of the domestic economy. As early as 2013, new factories had been set up to produce German-designed electronic surveillance equipment, and the United Arab Emirates was brought in as a partner in a joint venture to assemble armoured vehicles and heavy trucks. 2016 saw the formation of a partnership between the Ministry of National Defense and the Italian company Leonardo-Finmeccanica to make light- and medium-weight helicopters. A larger enterprise was inaugurated at the port of Oran to build several types of small warships and seagoing barges.

Military manufacturing accelerated sharply in the aftermath of the 2015–16 crisis. Locally made self-propelled artillery platforms were put on display at an armaments exhibition in July 2017; unmanned aerial vehicles capable of long-range strikes began to be produced shortly thereafter. At the same time, the defence ministry set up a new public sector conglomerate, the Establishment for the Development of Technical Systems, tasked with overseeing ‘the study, design, engineering and production of complex weapons systems’. The new agency set up factories to produce small airplanes, electronic equipment and ‘industrial and technical textiles’. During 2019–20 a branch of this conglomerate started to build medium-range ballistic and air-to-ground missiles based on Russian designs. Reports circulated in early 2022 that the Ministry of National Defence was exploring the possibility of collaborating with Ukrainian and Turkish armaments companies to make weaponry that Algeria had prior to that time imported from Russia.

Whether the rapidly expanding military industrial sector will be a fillip to or a drag on the Algerian economy has yet to be determined. Since the new ventures for the most part assemble components that have been manufactured outside the country, they offer little impetus to domestic heavy industry. More important, the monies required to build and operate these assembly lines reduce the amount of capital available to support other public sector enterprises, most of which stand in desperate need of renovation. The draft budget for 2023 mandates a massive increase in military spending, which is likely to siphon financial resources away from other areas of the economy.

On the other hand, some connections have already grown up between the enterprises operated by the armed forces and light manufacturing companies. These linkages have ‘contributed to creating thousands of jobs, [as well as] overcoming the crises experienced by some national industrial sectors such as the textile sector through partnership between the two sectors’ (Bachouche, 2021). Expanding military industry may thus play a role in augmenting employment opportunities, particularly for educated young people who are interested in pursuing careers in electrical engineering, computer science and data analysis.

State-military relations

At the same time that the military became a significant actor in local industry, the collaborative relationship that had existed between civilian agencies of the state and the armed forces ever since the coup d’etat of June 1965 morphed into something like the competitive partnership that had characterized the turbulent pre-coup era of President Ahmed Ben Bella. The shift was heralded by President Bouteflika’s May 2012 declaration that the generation that had won the war for independence had at last reached its end. This unexpected pronouncement posed a direct challenge to the military, whose legitimacy as a political protagonist is almost entirely derived from its mythical role in the independence war. In the wake of Bouteflika’s declaration, high-ranking commanders started to consider replacing the president with one last personage drawn from the generation that had battled the French, whose tenure could give the armed forces time to come up with a revised justification for wielding power. Disagreement inside the high command over how to proceed culminated in the ouster of the Chief of Staff and another influential general, both of whom were rumoured to favour ousting the president.

Rivalry between senior state officials and high-ranking military commanders resurfaced in the years surrounding the 2015–16 crisis. The two camps wrestled for control over the tarnished but potent Department of Intelligence and Security (DRS), which ended up being incorporated into the Office of the Presidency and rebranded as the Security Services Directorate (DSS). Tension flared again in June 2018, when the Office of the Presidency abruptly dismissed the Director General of National Security, the commander of the National Gendarmerie and several other high-ranking officers. Another four influential commanders were relieved of duty that August.

As popular unrest surged during the winter of 2018–19, the armed forces took steps to recoup its position inside the ruling coalition. A statement issued by the high command placed the blame for burgeoning public disorder on ‘recently retired generals and military officers’ associated with the internal security services, who were alleged to be plotting to prevent Bouteflika from running for re-election. While the dominant parties in the National Popular Assembly, Prime Minister Ahmad Ouyahia and the leadership of the UGTA all voiced support for Bouteflika’s candidacy, the military component of The Powers That Be kept silent. Not until the protests threatened to spiral out of control in early March 2019 did the Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Ahmad Qa’id Salah, warn that the armed forces would not permit anarchy to prevail. His carefully worded statement prompted the head of one opposition party to complain that ‘those who listened to your speech could not determine whether you were siding with or threatening the people’ (Lahyani, 2019). The answer came on 20 March, when Qa’id Salah applauded the ‘noble aims and pure intentions, through which the Algerian people has clearly expressed its values and principles of sincere and dedicated work to Allah and the motherland’ (Chikhi & Ould Ahmed, 2019a). A week later the Chief of Staff proposed in a televised address that Bouteflika be declared unfit to remain in office.

Qa’id Salah’s proposal was flatly rejected by prominent liberal politicians, most notably the leader of the Rally for Culture and Democracy, on the grounds that only elected representatives had the constitutional right to declare the head of state incompetent. The civil rights proponents of al-Hirak denounced the Chief of Staff’s proposal as well, and called for the dismantling of both the military and the civilian components of The Powers That Be. The leadership of the president’s own political party, the National Liberation Front (FLN), by contrast, announced its ‘support for the initiative as a start in a constitutional plan that will allow us to protect our country from dangers’ (Chikhi & Ould Ahmed, 2019b). The UGTA quickly followed the FLN’s lead.

Abandoned by the military high command, the FLN and the UGTA, Bouteflika relinquished the presidency on 2 April 2019 and executive authority passed to the speaker of the legislature’s upper chamber, the Council of the Nation. Aware that he now found himself in a precarious position, the speaker deferred to the Chief of Staff to set the agenda for the upcoming transition. Qa’id Salah told an audience of military officers that members of the former president’s inner circle would be prosecuted for corruption and presidential elections would be held as quickly as practicable. When al-Hirak continued its weekly protests, he warned the movement that ‘all options are open in the pursuit of overcoming the different difficulties and finding a solution to the crisis as soon as possible’; he then charged that the former head of the DRS was responsible for perpetuating public disorder. Meanwhile, several high-ranking officers in the internal security services aligned with Bouteflika were replaced by commanders drawn from the regular armed forces.

Popular resistance to the reinvigoration of the military component of The Powers That Be surged as May 2019 opened. Faced with banners proclaiming ‘No to Military Rule’ and chants calling for the Chief of Staff’s resignation, the high command ordered the arrest of the two former heads of the DRS, along with Bouteflika’s brother Sa’id; because the three were brought before a military tribunal and charged with endangering national security, they became liable to receive ‘sentences ranging between life in prison and death’. Two former prime ministers and eight other ex-ministers were arrested at the end of the month. Yet the weekly protests persisted, prompting Qa’id Salah to label those who interfered with the transition process that had been mapped out by the military ‘enemies of Algeria’. Exasperated, the Chief of Staff asserted that it was now up to the protesters to determine how the problem of selecting a new head of state should be solved.

Participation in the protest movement plateaued as the autumn of 2019 went by, and the protesters’ objectives became increasingly murky. The movement’s levelling off emboldened the armed forces and internal security services to work in tandem to round up and imprison hundreds of civil rights proponents. By early November Qa’id Salah could claim that the plan to hold the presidential election in mid-December enjoyed the ‘full support’ of the Algerian people. UGTA cadres took to the streets at the end of November to affirm their support for the military’s intended course of action. When the ballots were actually cast, extensive abstention on the part of independent unionists, civil rights activists and university students resulted in victory for Tabboune, who was rumoured to have close ties to the Chief of Staff. Before the dust had a chance to settle, however, Qa’id Salah suffered a fatal heart attack.

President-elect Tabboune named as the next Chief of Staff a high-ranking officer from the same cohort as Qa’id Salah, Major General Sa’id Chengriha. Unlike his predecessor, Chengriha was not appointed to the governmental post of Deputy Minister of Defence. Informed observers noted that Chengriha had no previous experience in politics, and had spent his career leading combat units. On the eve of the first anniversary of al-Hirak’s emergence, the president issued a warning to the country to ‘beware of [foreign] infiltration’ in the protest movement; he then declared 22 February 2020 to be a ‘national day of fraternity and cohesion between the people and their army for democracy’. The Ministry of the Interior two weeks later banned all public gatherings in order to stem the spread of COVID-19, and al-Hirak opted to comply with the directive.

During the lull in popular protests, Tabboune and his allies purged the armed forces and internal security services of the remaining commanders who had held pivotal posts during the Bouteflika era. The General Director of Internal Security, who had conspicuously backed another candidate during the presidential campaign, was replaced with an officer close to both the president and the former heads of the DRS. Three long-time comrades of Qa’id Salah were replaced in August 2020 by generals more acceptable to the Office of the Presidency. Following these moves, Tabboune intimated that he was going to nominate the Commander of the Republican Guard, Lieutenant General Ben Ali Ben Ali, to be Deputy Minister of Defence. This swipe at the Chief of Staff was too much for the high command to bear, however, and in a gathering at the headquarters of the Presidential Guard ten general officers persuaded Ben Ali to refuse the appointment and resign. The president then backed off and brought a long-time comrade of Chengriha out of retirement to serve as his special military adviser.

Conclusion

Algeria’s current difficulties reflect not only the paucity of hydrocarbons revenues since 2014 but also the transformation of the social structure of accumulation that took place in the aftermath of the 2015–16 crisis. The ruling coalition’s control over the labour movement has become more tenuous, even though the forcible suppression of the mass protests orchestrated by al-Hirak and sharp rise in the cost of living have diminished the intensity and impact of workers’ activism. The armed forces has carved out a significant role in local industry, augmenting employment opportunities for skilled workers but at the same time draining the state’s reservoir of investment and operating capital. Rivalry between the civilian agencies of the state and the armed forces seems to have dampened following the inauguration of President Tabboune, although the military has strengthened its position inside the ruling coalition.

This reconfigured SSA perpetuates severe impediments to sustained economic growth and stable governance. The post-epidemic rebound in world hydrocarbons prices has provided the state with additional financial resources, which might well be deployed to address the grievances of workers, and satisfy the demands of government employees, public sector managers and private businesspeople. Yet increased income from hydrocarbons exports is unlikely to be sufficient to overcome the crisis tendencies inherent in the underlying structure of the Algerian political economy.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.