There are some big headline issues happening in Algeria that are sucking up a lot of bandwidth, but at the same time there are also some potentially significant economic developments that are garnering less attention.
What a week! The government in Algeria seems to be changing up its tactics. After 30 weeks of playing rope-a-dope, the government is coming out swinging against the demonstration movement with a triple combination.
It’s rentrée and the chattering classes are chattering in Algeria – mostly about Army Chief of Staff Ahmed Gaid Salah’s 2 September statement that he would like the government to organize elections for a permanent government as quickly as possible. President Abdelkader Bensalah could convene Algeria’s constitutional council on 15 September to initiate the electoral process,
Nouakchott is abuzz. Ismail Bedda Ould Chiekh Sidiya, President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani’s prime minister, has announced his government and it’s not what Goldilocks would’ve wanted. It’s too technocratic. It’s too politicized. It’s too Bidane. It’s too maraboutic. It’s too new. It’s too old.
As Bradley says, summertime and the living’s easy. Algeria is transitioning – from what to what is a little unclear. The wheels aren’t coming off, though, and that’s a good thing. Mauritania is going gangbusters – a successful presidential succession, a solid security environment, and investment on the rise. Libya, on the other hand, is in a tailspin: a full-blown political crisis, outright war, and a looming humanitarian catastrophe.
The Brookings Institute, a Washington, DC think tank, recently published a study by three American researchers entitled “Algeria’s Uprising: A Survey of Protestors and the Military.” The study purports to survey and analyze protestors’ and Algerian military personnel’s attitudes about Algeria’s current political circumstances and future political developments. In particular, the survey claims to analyze active duty military personnel’s opinions about Army Chief of Staff Major General Ahmed Gaid Salah and his role in Algeria’s pre-electoral period.
NARCO doesn’t often publish raw fieldnotes, but given how much recent analysis of what is happening in Algeria – especially in regard to the populist political movement known as Hirak – is gleaned from social media (scraping Twitter feeds and Facebook posts), I thought it would be a refreshing intervention to share my notes from observing the latest Hirak demonstration in Algiers last Friday (19 July.)
Travel and national holidays pushed back delivery of the June NARCO RoundUp, but better late than never. Algeria is in a surprisingly mature political transition – inching carefully forward one week at a time. Libya is still at war, which is becoming increasingly costly and threatening more and more lives directly and indirectly. And Mauritania is surprisingly dynamic, having orchestrated a largely peaceful largely democratic transition and having sidestepped the hydrocarbons sector corruption issues currently plaguing its southern neighbor.
Following Mauritania’s 22 June presidential election and Mohamed Ould Ghazouani’s 23 June victory speech, Nouakchott and other cities have witnessed sporadic unrest, with opposition groups rejecting the election results. There is allegedly a large opposition demonstration planned for 27 June in Nouakchott...
On 22 June, some Mauritanians will go to the polls to elect a new president. There is not much suspense: current Minister of Defense and former Army Chief of Staff Mohamed Ould El Ghazouani will very likely win...
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