Now They are Seven: Algeria’s Candidates, Part Two

As noted in a stop-press addition to Part One of this Dossier, on March 11 the Algerian Constitutional Court reduced the number of candidates In the April 15 Presidential election from 12 to seven. Four of those seven — Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Mouloud Hamrouche, Mokdad Sifi and Youssef El Khatib — were profiled in Part One. This second part discusses the other three candidates — Hoçine Aït Ahmed, Ahmed Taleb El Ibrahimi, and Abdallah Djaballah— and some of the other emerging issues. The campaign was actually due to formally begin yesterday, and an electorate of 17.5 million registered voters go to the polls April 15.

The conventional wisdom at the moment is that there are really only four “serious” candidates: Bouteflika, Aït Ahmed, Ibrahimi, and Hamrouche. That is almost certainly an accurate reading: Khatib is a somewhat symbolic candidate and Djaballah lacks the support of his own former party, while Sifi probably cuts into Hamrouche’s constituency but is not as strong. Conventional wisdom also has it that Bouteflika is the man to beat. That is still true, though perhaps not so much so as seemed likely a few months ago. Conflicting statements from senior Army leaders suggest that while some, such as former Army Commander Khaled Nezzar, are firmly in Bouteflika’s camp, others are protesting their neutrality and may actually mean it. If the Army really is divided, Bouteflika may find himself on the horns of a dilemma: not really backed by the Army, but denounced by the other candidates as the man the Army imposed. Bouteflika’s campaign has also tended to be either singularly uncommunicative, or downright banal in its calls for a restoration of Algeria’s dignity and pride.

But if Bouteflika is not assured of a runaway victory, he is still very much the man to beat: any doubts about that should have been dispelled on March 22 when the country’s powerful trade union, the General Union of Algerian Workers (UGTA), endorsed Bouteflika. UGTA is close to the government establishment, and with the National Liberation Front (FLN)  and the official leadership, at least, of the ruling National Democratic Rally (RND) already backing Bouteflika, he is clearly the candidate of the present powers that be, even if the Army is not unanimous.

The remaining three weeks of the campaign may yet contain some surprises, but the general impression to date is that, despite his strength, Bouteflika may not be popular enough to command a first-round majority. If that is correct, the importance of the runoff might depend on who the opponent is. If it proves to be Ibrahimi, who is positioning himself as the voice calling for negotiations with the Islamist opposition, then the runoff could prove to be a very interesting race indeed, and the Army’s stance worth watching closely.

W hen the process began, 48 people were seeking the Presidency. After the deadline for submitting petitions, 12 claimed to have gathered sufficient support: 11 men and one woman, all civilians. Part One of this Dossier profiled five of those candidates, and was to profile the remainder this time. Just before presstime of Part One, however, the Constitutional Court reduced the number to seven, four of them among those profiled last time.

In most of the cases, candidates were excluded for technical violations: insufficient signatures or signatures not gathered in the requisite 25 of Algeria’s 48 provinces; signatures which also appeared on another candidate’s petition, and so on. The one exception was the case of Cheikh Mahfoudh Nahnah of the Movement for a Peaceful Society (Hamas), and his exclusion has now become a campaign issue in its own right. Hamas, which was formerly the Movement for an Islamic Society (with the same acronym), is a moderate Islamist party, and Nahnah a cleric. Nahnah was one of five candidates who ran in the 1995 Presidential elections, and to the surprise of many, he ran second to incumbent President Liamine Zeroual, with (a quarter?) of the vote.

But subsequent amendments to the constitution tightened a pre-existing requirement that any candidate for the Presidency who was born before the year 1942 must provide proof from his community that he participated in the independence struggle against France. Although Nahnah and his supporters say that he was an active participant, the Constitutional Court ruled that he did not meet the qualifications required, and disqualified him from running.

Several other candidates have since protested and sought intervention from the Interior Ministry to let Nahnah run, but every indication was that the government would abide by the ruling and keep Nahnah out. That left two contenders for the “Islamist” vote (though neither can run as an Islamist under the constitution): Abdallah Djaballah and Ahmed Taleb El Ibrahimi (See Below).

Part I looked at the candidates (then five, now four) most closely identified with the traditional secular nationalist leadership: Bouteflika, Hamrouche, Sifi and Khatib being the four survivors from that group. This installment profiles the other three candidates — one whose power base is Berber, and two with an appeal to Islamists — and examines some of the issues in the campaign.

The Three Remaining Candidates

The Kabyle Candidate: Hoçine Aït Ahmed

The Algerian war of independence against France from 1954-1962 remains central in Algeria’s national self-image today; Cheikh Mahfoudh Nahnah’s participation or lack thereof was the issue which led to his disqualification. During the war, the national movement was led by the famous “nine chefs historiques”, the six “internals” and three “externals” as they were known. Of the few of those

Hoçine Aït Ahmed

nine still surviving, only one is running for President: 72-year-old Hoçine Aït Ahmed. Aït Ahmed heads the Socialist Forces Front (FFS), a political party with its main electoral base among the country’s Kabyle or Berber population. (On Algeria’s Berbers, See the two-part Dossier, “Algeria’s Berbers: Third Force in a Complex War” in The Estimate, July 17 and July 31 , 1998. The July 17 Profiles offered an earlier profile of Aït Ahmed and of rival Berber leader Sa‘id Sa‘di, who ran for President in 1995 but whose Rally for Culture and Democracy is boycotting the elections this year.) Although the Berbers have generally been staunch supporters of secularism and opponents of political Islam (at least in its orthodox form), Aït Ahmed, in contradistinction from Sa‘di, has long supported a negotiated settlement with the Islamists, and has opposed both “a police state and a religious state”. Though he has lived most of the past few decades in Europe, he has returned to contest the Presidential elections and is considered one of the serious candidates.

Hoçine Aït Ahmed was born in the Kabylie in 1927. He joined the Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties (MTLD) led by Messali Hadj, and in 1948-1949 provoked the so-called “Berber crisis” of the nationalist movement by pressing for a more nationalist and less “Arab” identity for the independence movement. He also was the first head of the organisation spéciale, the underground wing of the movement, later headed by Ahmed Ben Bella.

When the revolution was proclaimed on November 1, 1954, Aït Ahmed, Ben Bella, and Mohamed Khidr were in Cairo, running the overseas bureau of what soon became the National Liberation Front (FLN), the “Cairo three” became the “external” leadership of the revolution. On October 22, 1956, these three plus Mohamed Boudiaf and Moustapha Lacheraf were flying from Rabat, Morocco to Tunis when a French Air Force aircraft forced them to land at Oran. They and Rabah Bitat were imprisoned in France for the remainder of the war of independence, adding to their stature if not their domestic influence. Although initially subject to harsh conditions, as the French began peace negotiations, the imprisoned leaders became key interlocutors.

After independence in 1962, Aït Ahmed returned to Algeria, where Ben Bella became the first President. Ben Bella’s autocratic tendencies soon led him to fall out with many of the historic leaders, and in September 1963 Aït Ahmed, along with Col. Mohand ou el-Hadj, formed the Socialist Forces Front and launched a revolt against Ben Bella in the Kabylie. Captured in 1964, Aït Ahmed was tried and sentenced to death, then saw his sentence commuted to life imprisonment. In 1966 he escaped and fled to Europe. He lived there, mostly in France and Switzerland, for 23 years. After political parties were allowed to form in 1989, he returned for a tour of Algeria, revitalizing the FFS. But in the wake of subsequent events, including the January 1992 cancellation of parliamentary elections, Aït Ahmed continued to spend most of his time in Europe, returning to Algeria again just a few months ago to campaign for President. He is naturally running as the FFS’ candidate.

Two Candidates with an Islamic/Islamist Leaning

Since political parties based on religion are banned by the Algerian constitution, there are no formal “Islamist” candidates. But in fact three of the 12 candidates — and now two of the remaining seven — are seen as having an appeal to those voters who might have voted for the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) or another Islamist party if any had been allowed to run. The one quasi-Islamist candidate in the 1995 election, Sheikh Mahfoudh Nahnah of Hamas, or the Movement for an Islamic Society, ran second after President Liamine Zeroual. Though his party was part of the most recent government, Nahnah, as noted earlier, has been barred from running. That leaves two candidates with at least an Islamic, if not an Islamist, approach. The stronger and harder to categorize one is Ahmed Taleb El Ibrahimi.

Ahmed Taleb El Ibrahimi

A full-scale Profile of Ahmed Taleb El Ibrahimi appeared on the Profiles page of The Estimate for February 12, 1999. Most of the detail in that profile will not be repeated here.

Ahmed Taleb El Ibrahimi has had a distinguished career in the Algerian establishment, served as Foreign Minister in 1982-1988, and was reportedly considered for the Presidency when Ahmed Boudiaf was assassinated in 1992. He was a close advisor to the late President Houari Boumédiène, and a loyal member of the longtime single party, the FLN. Why, then, is Ibrahimi listed here under Islamic/Islamist candidates and not in the section on figures from the secular nationalist establishment, described in Part One?

Ibrahimi has in recent years cultivated an image as a figure who might provide some sort of bridge

Ahmed Taleb El Ibrahimi

between the secular nationalists and the Islamists of FIS. His father, Bachir El Ibrahimi, was the head of the Algerian Assembly of ‘Ulama’ from the 1930s until the 1960s, and a key figure as a religious leader in the struggle against France, a man who rallied the religious establishment to the nationalist cause. The elder Ibrahimi fell out with Ahmed Ben Bella and died in 1965. His son Ahmed, born in Sétif in 1932,  had been active in Muslim youth affairs in France even before the revolution, as editor of Le Jeune Musulman and later President of the General Union of Algerian Muslim Students. That record, and the reputation of his father, gives him a credibility with many Islamists which the purely secular figures do not enjoy.

Jailed briefly in Ben Bella’s presidency, the younger Ibrahimi was released when Boumédiène toppled Ben Bella in 1965, and rose to cabinet and Presidential advisor rank before being named Foreign Minister in 1982 by Chadli Benjedid. He held that post until 1988.

In the wake of the 1992 cancellation of elections and the beginning of the troubles, Ibrahimi came to be a figure frequently mentioned as a possible compromise. When Mohamed Boudiaf was assassinated, he was rumored to be considered as a replacement: he has said he did hold consultations with the Defense Ministry, but that his views were not considered acceptable. During the negotiations held in Rome in the mid-1990s seeking a possible compromise solution, his name reportedly was considered acceptable by FIS leaders to head a possible coalition government.

In the present campaign, Ibrahimi has called for an “authentic Arabic-Islamic vision” and for dialogue with the Islamists; he has sought to portray himself as the candidate of reconciliation, and to picture Bouteflika as the military’s choice. He has essentially been running against Bouteflika, ignoring most of the other candidates. Similarly, hardline secularists have sought to portray Ibrahimi as a sort of stalking-horse for FIS. Many observers think he has a very good chance of surviving into a runoff round along with Bouteflika. He is running as an independent, not as a candidate of any party.

Abdallah Djaballah (Jaballah)

Abdallah Djaballah

Abdallah Djaballah was for some years head of the small Nahda (renaissance or rebirth) party, a moderate Islamist group which has participated in the electoral process. When military and establishment pressures grew to support Bouteflika late last year, the Nahda party leadership rejected Djaballah’s efforts to run himself and endorsed Bouteflika instead. Djaballah, a 43-year-old figure from Skikda who wears an Islamist’s beard, then bolted his own party and started a new one, the National Reform Movement, though he is running for President as an independent. He is a far more marginal figure than either Aït Ahmed or Ibrahimi.

Some of the Issues in the Race

Regular readers of The Estimate are already aware of many of the issues in Algeria. Although the various candidates have slogans for their campaigns, it can be hard to distinguish their actual programs. The formal race for the Presidency actually began only yesterday, March 25, and the three-week campaign may very well provide some new insight into the candidates’ programs (especially Bouteflika’s stealth platform),  but they have long been positioning themselves, and among the key issues emerging are:

The Role of the Army. Although the Army claims to be neutral, and only retired Gen. Khaled Nezzar has openly backed Bouteflika (See The Estimate , February 26, 1999), everyone believes that the FLN and the main leadership of the RCD backed Bouteflika because of Army pressure, and this has become a means of criticizing Bouteflika, whose policy statements have been singularly sparse.

How to Deal with the Islamist Challenge. Although FIS is banned, several candidates have indicated they would seek ways to open a dialogue, and Ibrahimi is seen by some as almost the unofficial candidate of FIS, or at least for opening such a dialogue with FIS. Such positions do not sit well with the Army. Others speak in broader terms of dialogue, of returning to the electoral legitimacy which was suspended in 1992, and other such terms which hint at some sort of dealing with FIS, though without making it explicit.

Fairness . Several candidates have called for international observers, which the government says are not needed; and several have called for Nahnah’s reinstatement as a candidate. If Bouteflika wins too easily, there will certainly be protests about the vote’s fairness.

Regionalism. No one likes to discuss the fact that there are still many rivalries between regions in Algeria. In the present campaign, Bouteflika, who comes from Tlemcen in the west (though born in Morocco), is the only candidate from western Algeria since the disqualification of Sid Ahmed Ghozali, while three of the four major candidates are from the east: Aït Ahmed of course with his base in the Kabyle, Ibrahimi originally from Sétif, Hamrouche from Constantine. Of the three less important candidates, Mokdad Sifi is also an easterner from Tebessa, as is Djaballah (Skikda), while Youssef El Khatib, born in Chlef, made his name as the commander of Wilaya 4 during the revolution, controlling the area around the capital of Algiers. If regionalism plays a role (which it certainly does for the Berber vote), then the easterners’ vote may well be divided, while Bouteflika seems to be popular in the west, and with the Army generals of western origin. Some analysts may be making more of the geographical issue than it deserves, but there is little enough electoral history in Algeria for comparison.

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