One of the nice things about Algeria analysis is that it resists hot takes. Things don’t happen quickly in Algeria. In part, this is because of Algeria’s laborious consensus-based decision-making process and in part because Algeria genuinely does carefully consider foreign policy positions.
Russia’s Ukraine invasion and the concomitant European energy crisis, instability in Libya, Tunisia’s limbo, and the Sahel’s dysfunction have all focused international attention on Algeria. Could it be the ball’s belle? But what underpins Algeria’s foreign policy? With whom does it engage and why?
Two days after it was announced that Algerian President Tebboune would make a state visit to France in May, there are reports in French media that the trip has been postponed. Algerian officials are mum. Mais n’importe quoi. The significance of the announcement remains.
King Mohammed VI is back in Morocco to observe the Holy Month of Ramadan after having spent the last five weeks in seclusion in Gabon.
Per the Mauritanian Ministry of Interior, the evening of 5 March, Mauritania suffered its first “terrorist attack” in 12 years. Four prisoners linked to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) escaped the Central Prison in Nouakchott late Sunday evening.
Tunisia’s economic circumstances were cataclysmic. President Kais Saied had eviscerated state institutions and gutted civil society. He had consolidated all control in the presidency, adopting an authoritarian “l'État, c'est moi” attitude.
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is pissed. He’s in the home stretch of his first presidential term and things are not going as smoothly as he wants. Something’s up in Algeria and something’s going down.
Some Algerian decisionmakers recognize that current circumstances present Algeria with unprecedented opportunities. In order to seize those opportunities, it needs to dispel the fantasies and fears that persist about Algeria and show that it is in many ways a normal country.
So, the legislative elections orchestrated by President Kais Saied on 17 December were a bust. 8% participation rate. Near total rejection of Saied’s power grab. No big surprise.But parallel to Tunisia’s descent into the political morass is an unfolding commercial calamity. Tunisia’s foreign direct investment is slowing to a trickle and is even showing signs of reversing.
Algeria is potentially planning an oil and gas licensing round for spring 2023. The timing might just be right for Algeria to knock the cover off the ball. Algeria’s last licensing round was in September 2014, and it was a massive flop. But that was years ago and a world away.
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