The EconomistDecember 7th 2019 Middle East & Africa 53T
he mostpopular candidate in Algeria’s
presidential election might be a rub-
bish bag. On December 12th Algerians will
choose a successor to Abdelaziz Bouteflika,
who stepped down in April after 20 years of
dictatorial rule. Or, rather, a small minority
of Algeria’s 41m people will choose one.
Much of the country seems unenthused by
the vote. In the capital, Algiers, protesters
hang rubbish bags over campaign posters
or replace them with pictures of jailed ac-
tivists. One candidate’s headquarters was
pelted with eggs and tomatoes. Another
was forced to cancel his first campaign ral-
ly because almost no one turned up.
To hear the government tell it, the elec-
tion is an important step towards democra-
cy. It will probably be the most tightly con-
tested presidential vote since 1995. Yet for
the millions of Algerians who demanded
the ousting of Mr Bouteflika—and who
continue to protest—it is nothing to cele-
brate. Instead the election demonstrates
the difficulty of removing the structures
that sustained the strongman.
First scheduled for July, the election
was postponed amid calls for a boycott.
Only two people, a veterinarian and a me-
chanic, registered to run. This time 23 can-
didates tried to make the ballot. Most failed
to meet the requirements, such as collect-
ing signatures from supporters in at least
25 provinces. The five who made it all
served under Mr Bouteflika—two as prime
minister, two as cabinet members and the
fifth as an mpwho led a small loyalist party.
It may seem paradoxical to shun an
election to support democracy. But activ-
ists say they have learned from the failed
uprisings in countries like Egypt, where
protesters toppled a ruler but not his re-
gime. By the end of his long reign, the ailing
Mr Bouteflika was no longer up to the task
of running the country. Though he re-
mained the figurehead, a group of men
known as le pouvoirwielded power behind
the scenes. They are loth to surrender it.
For the armed forces, which saw their
own pouvoircurtailed in favour of busi-
nessmen close to Mr Bouteflika, the cur-
rent vacuum is a chance to regain control.
One of the candidates, Abdelmadjid Teb-
boune, a former prime minister, is thought
to be close to the army chief, Gaid Salah.
The regime had hoped to simply outlast
the protesters, who call themselves Hirak
(“movement” in Arabic). That strategy has
not yet worked: Algerians have demon-
strated every week since February. As the
election approaches the regime has turned
to coercion, detaining scores of activists
and journalists. Having been embarrassed
in July, the authorities are determined to
hold the vote. General Salah warns of for-
eign plots against Algeria, while the interi-
or minister labels critics of the election as
“traitors, mercenaries, homosexuals”.
The bigger question is what happens
after December 12th. Algeria will have a
new president widely seen as illegitimate.
But he will still be president, with all the
power that entails. Compared with other
Arab countries, the repression in Algeria
has been mild. The incoming president,
keen to cement his grip on power, may not
show such forbearance.
He will also inherit a stagnant econ-
omy. Despite its vast oil and gas wealth, Al-
geria’s per-capita income is below that of
some resource-poor Arab states, such as
Lebanon. Unemployment is 12% overall
and much higher for young people. The fi-
nance minister recently warned that for-
eign reserves, which amounted to $200bn
in 2014, may drop to $50bn by the end of
next year. The value of oil and gas exports,
which supply 60% of government revenue,
fell by 13% in the first nine months of 2019.
A new hydrocarbons law, meant to draw
foreign investment, has been criticised by
protesters and energy experts alike.
Algerians are not alone. In Sudan, Leba-
non and Iraq this year angry citizens top-
pled their rulers but have struggled to force
deeper changes. The protests cannot con-
tinue for ever. Algeria’s election might be a
stunt to keep theancien régimein power—
but that does not mean it will fail.^7BEIRUT
Algerians fear their forthcoming
election will be a blow to democracy
Algeria’s election
The regime sets
the menu
S
ouad al-sawysquints in the glare of the
mid-afternoon sun, searching for a bus
home. The 18-year-old student’s commute
used to take 20 minutes, but these days it
can take up to 90. “It’s getting worse every
day,” she sighs. Although life after the revo-
lution has improved in many ways—for in-
stance, a hated law that banned women
from wearing revealing clothing was re-
pealed last month—freedom was not sup-
posed to involve so many traffic jams.
Seven months after the fall of Omar al-
Bashir and his 30-year-long kleptocracy,
Sudan is struggling to escape the legacy of
corruption and mismanagement he be-
queathed it. Nowhere is this more evidentthan in the traffic-clogged streets of Khar-
toum, the capital, where public transport
has all but disappeared. So bad is the short-
age of buses that the interim government
has decreed that vehicles belonging to the
police and army be used to ferry ordinary
people about the city.
Traffic jams are the work of the “deep
state”, conjectures Ms Sawy. A group of
minibus owners in north Khartoum claim
that saboteurs are causing gridlock by
abandoning vehicles in the roadways.
Some blame members of the former ruling
party, the National Congress Party (ncp),
which owned nearly 40,000 vehicles.
As for the vanishing public transport,
Yasir Alkordi, a journalist, reported in Sep-
tember that bus drivers had been paid by
ncp members to shirk work. The aim of
these “dirty tricks” is to undermine the new
government, says Mohammed Ali Fazan,
another journalist. “By hook or by crook,
[the ncp] wants to come back to power
again.” On November 28th the government
passed a law to dissolve the party and seize
its assets. But government institutions, in-
cluding the Khartoum State Transportation
Company, are still stuffed with former loy-
alists, who cannot all be removed at once.
The real causes of the transport crisis
are, however, probably mundane econom-
ics rather than a conspiracy. The state-reg-
ulated fares are too low to pay for the main-
tenance of buses shaken to bits on
Khartoum’s shoddy roads. Mohammed Ali,
a driver, says that a year or so ago there were
130 minibuses working his route; now
there are only seven. The government
plans to extend roads and import buses,
and has started running trains that, thanks
to corruption, had been idle for years. But
cleaning up the mess will take time and
money. It might be short of both. 7KHARTOUM
A transport crisis is one of many
challenges facing Sudan’s new leadersTraffic in SudanAll jammed up
Gridlock on the road to freedom