Analysis

The January NARCO RoundUp returns to the conventional format looking at Politics, Security and Oil in Libya, Algeria, and Morocco. If there is any one regional political trend it is stasis. Apart from Libya, there is not much happening on the political front in North Africa. So much so that it has been more than 17 weeks since Morocco’s legislative elections and still no government. Violent crime has displaced terrorism as the main security risk in Libya. Algeria remains unchanged. And Morocco keeps busting terror plots, with the latest allegedly involving an Islamic State bomb maker from Libya. Lastly, for the first time in years Libya’s near term oil outlook is good. Algeria’s not so much, but for reasons that are largely outside of its control. And questions continue to swirl around Samir, Morocco’s only (and shuttered) refinery

This issue of the NARCO RoundUp is a kind of retrospective on the last twelve months and a little forecasting for what’s to come. A lot changed. Libya defeated a lot of demons, but only to make room for some more. Algeria’s change is paradoxically incremental and disruptive, with the landscape shifting, but not in any determinate way. Tunisia’s changes seem to be mostly cosmetic. But a lot also stayed the same. Libya is still barely a state. Expected changes in leadership in Algeria failed to materialize. Tunisia is still a political, economic and security mess. What does it all mean? There will be a civil war in Libya. In Algeria, the state will have to manage its contract with society more carefully than it has in the last decade. And Tunisia will struggle to remain relevant.

For months Algerian institutions, both public and private, had been talking up the African Investment Forum. The event was going to showcase Algeria’s potential as an investment destination and its commitment to south-south development and cooperation. It was endorsed by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, was supported by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Industry, Commerce, and Energy, and was sponsored by the powerful Forum de Chefs d’Entreprise (FCE). North Africa Risk Consulting was told that it was going to harken back to the good old days of the 1970s when Algiers was a Third World pole, when it feted leaders from far and wide. Algeria was rediscovering itself and the event was going to broadcast to Africa north and south of the Sahara that it was back.

At NARCO, we love Halloween, so the October NARCO RoundUp celebrates the Halloween spirit. Politics explores the theme of zombie governments and presidents who are “not dead yet.” Security looks at the fate of the Islamic State in Libya – where are all the corpses? We revisit Mokhtar Belmokhtar, simultaneously dead and alive (!), and in Tunisia we highlight on going ties between al-Qaeda in Algeria and its affiliate in Tunisia. Oil argues that Libya’s oil recovery is an unsustainable freak event, highlights how Algeria got its mojo back, and showcases the collapse of Tunisia’s extractives industry.