In Algeria, a status quo vote

Al Qaeda attacks last month have not altered the likely result of Thursday's parliamentary election.

By Jill Carroll | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the May 17, 2007 edition

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Algiers, Algeria - The man heading the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) party's campaign leans back comfortably on a leather couch in the party offices and shakes his head with a smile.

That's Amar Friha's answer when asked if he sees any real challenges to the power of the FLN (known by its French initials) from other parties running in Thursday's parliamentary election. To illustrate his point, he holds up a campaign pamphlet featuring a rose. The slogan reads "You can cut one flower but you can't stop the spring."

"This is the FLN. They will never be able to cut the rose. It will be spring everyday," he says of the party's power and its message of unity with the public after terrorist bombings last month directed at the heart of the FLN-run government.

Some analysts see Algeria's election as a small democratic step forward for a country still shaking off the effects of a brutal civil war in the 1990s sparked when the Army canceled legislative elections that an Islamic party appeared set to win. The subsequent fighting, which left more than 200,000 dead, has mostly receded. But some insurgents have joined – or renamed themselves – Al Qaeda in Islamic North Africa and claimed responsibility for the April 11 double suicide bombings in Algiers, which hit the prime minister's office and a police station.

Some political analysts welcome Thursday's elections as a way to improve security by giving opposition groups a way to voice dissent and criticize the government. But the FLN's continued dominance also means there is limited ability for opposition groups to influence the ruling party's agenda or act as a check on its power, which is being consolidated around the executive branch, analysts say. So, turnout is expected to be low.

"The way Algerians understand the system, and the way they respond to it, is 'the fix is in' so 'why bother,'" says John Entelis, a North Africa expert at Fordham University in New York. "Anyone that could seriously challenge [the FLN] is banned or co-opted sufficiently."

Mr. Entelis predicts that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who is from the FLN, will win a base of compliant members of parliament, who will approve amendments to the constitution sought by to lengthen his term in office. An amnesty law passed last year that grants broad immunity to government security forces as well as Islamist groups from the civil war has also made it illegal to criticize the government or the president.

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The race is on: A supporter of Algeria's National Liberation Front sits on his horse next to the FLN office in El Oued, Algeria. Algeria's legislative election will be held on May 17. AP