Ailing Algerian president heads for fourth term

Barring a major change in the way Algerian presidential elections are run, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika (77) will be elected to a fourth five-year term today.

Ali Benflis, "Boutef's" former prime minister and the only serious rival among five challengers, has deployed 60,000 observers, one for every polling station in the country of 39 million. Benflis has predicted massive fraud, to which Bouteflika responded by accusing Benflis of "terrorism".

Official vote tallies have always been meaningless in Algeria. When he stood against Bouteflika in 2004, Benflis was credited with 6.4 per cent of the vote compared to 85 per cent for Bouteflika. If today's election results in a run-off, it will be the first since independence.

The incumbent president, who suffered a severe stroke followed by several months of hospital treatment in Paris last year, appeared not once in public during the campaign.

A giant portrait of the phantom candidate hung over the stage at Bouteflika’s final rally in an Algiers sports stadium, but he wasn’t there.

He made four brief television appearances during the campaign. When he was shown shaking hands with the visiting US secretary of state John Kerry on April 3rd, the big news was that he was able to stand, albeit holding on to an armchair.

Bouteflika came to power in 1999, just as the “dark decade”, in which some 200,000 Algerians were killed, was ending. “Stability and continuity” has been his campaign slogan.

"Algeria has known two great tragedies: the war of independence and the civil war [between the military and Islamists] in the 1990s," the historian Benjamin Stora explained on France Inter radio.

“Algerians watch what is happening in Egypt, Libya and Mali. The government exploits their fear of chaos to ensure that nothing changes.”

Natural resources
Petrol and natural gas account for one-third of Algeria's GDP, two-thirds of its budget and 98 per cent of exports. Per capita income has risen from $1,600 to $5,600 during Bouteflika's 15-year rule. "By distributing money, the government has bought social peace – until now," says the Algerian feminist writer Wassyla Tamzali.

Algeria was ruled by the Ottomans for three centuries, then by the French for 130 years. The National Liberation Front (FLN) adopted a Soviet-style, centrally controlled economy, single party rule and omnipresent secret police.

When the generals accepted multi-party politics and press freedom in 1988, it opened the floodgates to Islamism, civil war and an orgy of corruption.

The likely re-election of an ailing, incapacitated geriatric is "embarrassing and humiliating", says the French commentator Bernard Guetta. Algeria's political life "is so blocked that it inevitably reminds one of the dying USSR in the early 1980s, when they preferred to hang on to breathless old men rather than risk change".

Benflis was Bouteflik's prime minister for three years, then leader of the FLN, so he is a product of the system, claiming to represent change. "How is our country going to be governed?" Benflis asked in an interview with Le Monde . "By a pharoah, by a president for life or by a democratic state?"

Bouteflika’s campaign made some desperate moves. The US state department issued a disclaimer after the government reported it had “congratulated” Algeria for organising transparent elections. (The Americans had in fact called for transparent elections.)

Prominent Algerian entertainers, doctors and business executives denounced attempts to railroad them into the appearance of supporting Bouteflika. A building where his campaign manager was supposed to hold a meeting in restive Kabylia was destroyed by an arson attack. The president’s rallies were ill- attended and required substantial police protection. A protest movement called Barakat! (Enough!) has emerged.

Deep divisions
The Bouteflika-Benflis stand- off masks deep divisions between clans and between the west and east of the country.

Bouteflika is supported by the army chief of staff Gen Gaid Salah, while Benflis is allied with the head of intelligence, Gen Mohamed Mediène, known as “Tewfik”.

Bouteflika’s younger brother Said (57) is believed to be the real power behind the throne.

“Corruption has attained the highest levels in Algeria, including Bouteflika’s brothers,” the French ambassador to Algiers was quoted in a WikiLeaks cable. The determination of Bouteflika’s entourage to perpetuate their own enrichment, as well as impunity from prosecution for corruption, is a plausible explanation for his re-election.