Algeria in 2004

Written by: George Joffé

2,381,741 sq km (919,595 sq mi)
(2004 est.): 32,322,000
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika
Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia

The April presidential election was the dominant event in Algeria in 2004. Pres. Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s reelection was meticulously planned and executed, although the size of his victory—85% of the vote—led to complaints of vote rigging. Despite these complaints, the result was generally accepted as reflecting popular choice. In the run-up to the elections, the complex procedures for candidate registration were effectively used to exclude Bouteflika’s major rival, Ahmed Taleb Ibrahimi, which thus also eliminated any chance of the emergence of a political vehicle for supporters of the banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS). In the aftermath the National Liberation Front (FLN), which had fielded its secretary-general, Ali Benflis, as its presidential candidate, fell into disarray, and Benflis was forced to resign. Although the FLN had joined the “presidential alliance,” alongside the National Democratic Rally (RND) and the Movement for a Peaceful Society (MSP), the party itself was reduced to political impotence as factions squabbled about the FLN’s future structure and role. Other opposition political parties also found themselves marginalized as a new centralized political system began to emerge.

Army Gen. Mohamed Lamari remained faithful to his 2003 promise to distance the army from the political scene and retired in August 2004. Lamari had reportedly opposed Bouteflika’s ambitions for reelection, and the two had some irreconcilable differences. The changes in the army’s command structure that followed, however, were minor; both the head of military security, Gen. Mohamed Mediène, and Bouteflika’s military adviser, Gen. Mohamed Touati, kept their posts, as did the president’s adviser, retired general and former minister of defense Larbi Belkheir, who had long been rumoured to be the real power behind the throne.

The violence that had plagued Algeria over the past decade was contained during the year; the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) was eradicated from central Algeria, and the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) suffered heavy reverses in the eastern part of the country and to the east of Algiers. In August the GSPC leadership was killed close to the Soummam Valley, and for several months rural Algeria also enjoyed an uneasy calm. By October, however, a new round of attacks and ambushes had begun, despite the army’s successes in Kabylia and in eastern Algeria. In late October Libya extradited Amari Saifi, the GSPC operative who had been held responsible for the 2003 kidnappings of European tourists in the Sahara. Saifi had been held by a rebel group in Tibesti, Chad, for seven months.

The draft 2005 financial law marked the beginning of a new five-year plan that called for a $50 billion investment to renew Algeria’s infrastructure and economy. The president promised that by the end of his term one million new homes would be built and a vast expansion in employment would occur. After agreement with the trade union confederation (the Algerian General Workers’ Union), the government was poised to launch a privatization program that would affect all but “strategic” industries, including the hydrocarbon sector. The Sonatrach Petroleum Corp., however, would operate as an autonomous state company and seek an international role.

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