Algeria: Hirak Act II

The Hirakists persist in their demands for regime change, while the Military are pushing for the Constitutional order

Algeria’s “triangle of hope” could lead to the question the street, the Generals, and the Presidential Palace are asking: Will democracy in Algeria really be workable? According to classic political system theory, the qualification of the Algerian Constitutional system is the most complex of the Arab countries’ systems. Of the three Democratic systems, Algeria theoretically applies the Presidential system. On one hand, an elected President has extensive Constitutional powers, although the system contains many contradictory elements. 

The Parliamentarian system, on the other hand, in its function makes the elected Parliament and Senate the real euphemistic power-holders in any decision-making process. The role of the political parties, in Algeria’s case, is a multi-party model, which is actually a monopoly of two parties (FLN-RND) that have been the leading power combination for two decades under the Bouteflika oligarchic system.

The Algerian Presidential model, however, if there is one, gives a single individual as President the power to halt important reforms and public policies from justice, social housing policies to foreign policy and defense policy is the President.

Nevertheless, the Algerians’ political civility and the judiciary system’s credibility are always viewed with suspicion and register a cognitive dissonance throughout the entire country. According to the Hirakists a constitutional crisis is underway for the majority of the Hirakistsbecause of the involvement of the Military — a weak President could be appointed by the Generals and elected by the voters. A situation for the rest of the observers is a constitutional circumstances exception or an exclusionary rule.

The national political situation during this period is both unstable and authoritarian under a weak President and irrelevant Congress, even in “Caretaker” functioning government branches. Al though the purge operation led by the Military chief of Staff/Vice-Defense Minister General Ahmed Gaïd Salah against the Gang of 8 (either jailed in the infamous al-Harrach prison commonly called a-Rab’a q’tarate by the masses) or under investigation by the Military AG, is getting front page coverage and breaking news echos in the so-called private media which is becoming the “voice” of the Hirak and citizens’ media in post-Bouteflika era.

Currently, Algeria has a “Caretaker” President and a determined General who wants to accomplish something concrete to create a “triangle of hope” sentiment  — usually, this is not a virtuous characteristic for a Military leader to have, Algerians are accustomed to such behavior. Currently Algerians have a President who found himself in the Palace because of the soft coup of a General who got tired of the Bouteflika(s) and their gang, for the former is not running on any program or platform not promising anything to the angry voters.

The “Caretaker” President knows well his days are numbered and he is not empowered to fix the judiciary system and rehabilitate politics and the politicians in the after math of the “Cocaine Gate.” This scandal inspired frustrated soccer fans to ridicule the corrupt oligarchs and khobzist politicians from the stadiums’ bleachers with Hirak’s pop culture or “chant de guerre” song,  Casa d’al-Mouradia.

Thus the “Caretaker” President and the country’s strongman have been facing a tenacious opposition from all sides; oddly, this includes those who were opposing the ex-President’s fifth-term like the francophone media and elite in the town’s upper hills and the yuppy salons’ tea houses of les rues Larbi Ben M’hidi and Didouche Mourad. It is astonishing to see men and women fiercely detracting from the core narrative of the Algerian Mosaic uprising orchestrated by the Generals ending the political charade of the century cherished by the window boutique political parties and the ex-President’s brother’s minions, the Gang of 8.

Politics can be cruel in the way its treats its wounded. Not to mention political leaders like Mr. Tabou who forged his political career in the FFS Party and was the Party’s Chair, a hopeful presidential candidate for Neo-Algeria’s secularists. He represents a new generation of the lefty liberal politicians in the country, despite his harsh positions on the Military, which has offended his opponents on social media “labeling” him the soft voice of the Gang of 8. And now he is even daring to kill the hope of more than forty million Algerians, spitting in the honey pot that nourished his political carrier.