Executive Summary
Political Trends
· President Bouteflika has been undergoing treatment in Paris for two full months.
· The first and to date only pictures of Bouteflika since he was medevacked to France created a stir when they were released on June 12, but have so far not been followed with any action.
· The need to pass the supplementary finance law is making it increasingly urgent to put an end to the President’s absence – either by having Bouteflika impeached for incapacity or bringing him home to resume his duties.
· If, as seems increasingly possible, Bouteflika returns to Algeria in early July, his level of activity during Ramadan – when in previous years he has held a round of individual meetings with all his cabinet ministers – will provide a measure of how far he has really recovered from his stroke.
· While one source claims that Bouteflika has made a good recovery and even intends to run for president again next year, Prime Minister Sellal looks increasingly as if he is being groomed as a successor.
Foreign Relations
· Algeria, and in particular the military, has been drawing closer to the US since the In Amenas attack in January, and this rapprochement has moved forward with Washington’s decision to put multi-million dollar bounties on the heads of Mokhtar Belmokhtar and other leading Algerian jihadis, and the G8’s condemnation of ransom payments to terrorist groups.
· However, the Algerian regime remains incorrigibly suspicious of outside involvement in the region, and there will be elements within it who will look askance at AFRICOM’s latest initiatives in Mali and Niger.
· In many ways, the Algerian regime remains psychologically and politically closer to the Russians, as evidenced during Foreign Minister Medelci’s visit to Moscow in late June.
· Algiers’ proximity to Moscow, and mistrust of the intentions of western countries, is further encouraged by events in Syria.
Security
· Political violence in the north appears to be increasingly limited to specific areas of Kabylia.
· The situation in the oil and gas producing south is increasingly alarming, due both to overspill from the conflict in northern Mali and to continued activity on the part of groups based close to or just over the eastern borders with Tunisia and Libya.
· Amid worrying signs that the latter have some interest in oil and gas industry targets, there are reports that security forces in the south have been placed on heightened alert until the end of Ramadan in response to intelligence suggesting that an attack on « vital infrastructure » is being prepared.
· All incidents in the south close to the borders with Mali and Mauritania have been attributed to AQMI offshoot MUJAO, while Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s Katibat Al Moulathamine and the shadowy Sons of the Sahara for Islamic Justice have been mentioned in connection with incidents along the eastern borders.
Political Trends
It is now two full months since President Bouteflika was medevacked to Paris following what is now officially acknowledged to have been a stroke[1] (rather than a transient ischemia, or ‘mini-stroke’, as initially claimed). The first images of the President at the French military hospital where he is receiving treatment – in the company of Armed Forces Chief-of-Staff Maj-Gen. Ahmed Gaïd Saleh and Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal – may have created a stir when they were released on June 12, but they have not as yet been followed by any real change in the situation: Bouteflika remains abroad and apparently out of action, the government keeps ticking over, and the media continues to speculate about the past, present and future. It is almost as if Algerians were getting used to having an absentee head of state, and some Western observers have even suggested that, with business and the day-to-day life of the state effectively carrying on as normal, this bears out the late President Houari Boumedienne’s adage that Algeria is a country of institutions, not personalities. It is, however, precisely for institutional reasons that this situation cannot be allowed to drag on indefinitely: the extended absence of the President of the Republic creates an institutional vacuum that must one way or another be filled. With or without Bouteflika’s consent and/or participation, other stakeholders will therefore have to find a solution soon, and there are some indications that a solution – or at least a temporary fix – may be forthcoming within a week.
According to the Algerian constitution, all government bills must be discussed by the Council of Ministers before being submitted to parliament, and meetings of the Council of Ministers, the constitution stipulates, are chaired by the President of the Republic; after they have been discussed and approved by parliament, they must be signed into law by the President. While Bouteflika could theoretically sign laws in his Parisian hospital room – as, ostensibly, he has begun to do with presidential decrees, of which four, dated May 27, have been published in the latest official gazette[2] – it remains the case that the Council of Ministers cannot be convened without his physical presence. Thus, while ministers may be able to take care of day-to-day business, the government is unable to initiate legislation as long as the President is unavailable.
Various items have begun piling up, but one in particular requires urgent attention. In addition to the annual budget, usually approved in December for the following year, Algeria has become accustomed to passing a mid-year ‘supplementary budget’ (loi des finances complémentaire, or LFC). Generally approved in July, this has become a necessary part of the process of government: as well as adjusting revenue and expenditure for the rest of the year, these sometimes also introduce important new economic regulations (such as the now infamous ’49-51 rule’ providing for majority Algerian ownership of joint venture companies, enshrined in the 2009 LFC). This year, the LFC appears to have taken on special political importance. In response to the unprecedented protest movement that has been shaking the country’s southern provinces[3], plans for new taxes and reductions in consumer subsidies crafted by Finance Minister Karim Djoudi to take account of weakening oil prices and declining demand for Algerian oil and gas have apparently been thrown out; instead, the supplementary budget has reportedly been rewritten to include a range of measures (such as the creation of new government jobs for southerners, including 6,000 positions in the police force, etc.) aimed at buying social peace in the south. With parliament due to go into recess for a month at the end of July at the very latest, the presence of the head of state is therefore increasingly urgently required to get this piece of legislation adopted.
One option might have been to bring into play article 88 of the constitution, which provides for the impeachment of the President in case of « serious and lasting illness » and his replacement on an interim basis by the Speaker of the upper house of parliament. There has, however, been no indication that the Constitutional Council, which is responsible for initiating this process, is to be convened. It is thus looking increasingly likely that Bouteflika will be kept on as President, at least for the time being, and will be brought back to chair the upcoming Council of Ministers meeting. This was in effect the scenario that was suggested – to some scepticism, at the time – by a statement issued by the Algerian Presidency and dutifully carried by APS on June 12 to the effect that President Bouteflika had instructed Prime Minister Sellal to move ahead on finalising the 2013 LFC and « all other legislation that the government has been working on » in preparation for a Council of Ministers meeting. Sellal has since been promising that the Council of Ministers m
eeting will be held « soon ». Against this background, there would seem to be an increasingly strong chance that the President may be brought home soon – perhaps in time for the holy month of Ramadan (begins July 8 or 9) and possibly for Algeria’s independence day (July 5)[4].
If this does turn out to be the case, Ramadan will provide an important indicator as to Bouteflika’s real condition. Over his three successive terms of office, Bouteflika has established a tradition of holding individual performance assessment meetings with each of his ministers during the holy month. Failure to do so this year would be a pointer that his stroke has left lasting damage to his physical and/or mental condition. If on the other hand he does hold his Ramadan interviews as usual, this would lend greater credence to the claims of a staffer at the Presidency, made in conversations with us in mid-June, that that Bouteflika is not only in relatively good health but also still intends to run for a fourth term next year.
The same source claims that Prime Minister Sellal has been chosen by Bouteflika himself as his future Vice President (if and when the constitution is amended) and ultimately his successor – perhaps mid-way through his hoped-for fourth term, circa 2017; others have implied that the Prime Minister has been designated by other players within the power structure, in particular DRS chief Tewfik, as their candidate to succeed Bouteflika, as of 2014 if not sooner. One way or another, it is noticeable that Sellal has been acquiring a distinctly presidential air. Over the past month he has made two visits to the provinces (El Bayadh in the west of the country, Souk Ahras in the east, as if to emphasise balance between Algeria’s competing regions) with a large retinue of ministers in tow, which were highly reminiscent of the provincial inspection tours that used to be Bouteflika’s speciality; presided over the annual meeting of the country’s Walis (provincial governors), normally very much the President’s job; and begun standing in for Bouteflika at international gatherings.
Foreign Relations
2013 has seen a certain rapprochement between Algiers and Washington, in large measure a consquence of the January 16 attack on the Tiguentourine gas facility near In Amenas in the southern Wilaya of Illizi. But with powerful forces still pulling in the opposite direction, it would probably be overhasty to conclude that a lasting and close strategic relationship is just around the corner.
Within a fortnight of the In Amenas attack, French specialist newsletter Maghreb Confidentiel claimed that « In Amenas is boosting the Algerian-American axis »:
The attack against the In Amenas gas facility on January 16 has pushed Washington to further beef up its security ties with Algiers. According to Maghreb Confidentiel’s sources, Algeria has since that date been placed on the « A list » of countries with which the United States cooperates fully in defence and intelligence. And US Ambassador in Algiers Henry S. Ensher is pressing to have that temporary classification made permanent. This could accelerate the negotiations for the purchase by Algiers of US-made drones. The talks, which were launched several years ago, have been in the doldrums, Washington having demanded a right of oversight over the way in which they are used as a prior condition for any sale, which Algiers sees as intolerable interference.
In exchange for this all-out assistance, the United States hopes to push Algeria to review its role in the region. For US diplomats, Algeria may have had the best analysis of events in Libya and their impact on the region, but it has remained far too stand-offish: if it had really played its role to the full, the French operation in Mali could have been avoided.
The prospect of closer military cooperation has since been confirmed to us, up to a point, by a retired Algerian Air Force officer, who told us in May that:
The In Amenas attack was a turning point for the Algerian armed forces. [Not least because] on a strategic level, the faction which has been arguing for years that Algeria should buy American-made military equipment now has the upper hand. Algeria is looking to acquire American drones and AWACS, and contacts are under way – with more formal talks likely to begin soon – concerning closer cooperation between Algeria and AFRICOM.
For a country which, as little as five or six years ago, was considered the Russian arms industry’s biggest customer in Africa if not the world, this is already quite a turnaround.
On the diplomatic level, meanwhile, Algiers has been gratified to see the United States, together with the other G8 states when they gathered for the Lough Erne summit this month, formally adopting Algeria’s long-held stance of complete opposition to the payment of ransoms to terrorist groups. Similarly, the US State Department’s announcement in early June that it was offering a reward of up to $5m for information leading to the capture or killing of Mokhtar Belmokhtar (and similar bounties for Yahia Abou El Hammam and Malik Abou Abdelkarim of AQMI’s Saharan branch and MUJAO’s Oumar Ould Hamaha) has been greeted with satisfaction.
However, while Algiers may be pleased to see the US and other powers (notably France, which had become notorious for throwing money at Saharan hostage-takers) coming round to its positions, suspicion bordering on paranoia remains one of the halmarks of the Algerian regime. A fear of imperialist encirclement, and even of dismemberment, having been part of its make-up since its earliest days, it was the regime’s instinctive reaction to oppose NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011, and likewise French intervention in northern Mali (at least until it could no longer be avoided). Consequently, however keen some figures within the regime may be to move towards closer military cooperation with the United States, there will inevitably be others who look very much askance at any new encroachment by outside powers – including reports[5] that AFRICOM has begun airlifting matériel to Taoudeni in northern Mali (ostensibly for « elite units » of the Malian army) and building two new airstrips, one in Mali and the other in Niger, to facilitate « rapid interventions » by American forces.
Indeed, psychologically, and to a large extent politically, Algeria’s elite still has more in common with the Russians than with the United States. This proximity has been reinforced by events in and around Syria – of late in particular by American, French and British moves to arm Syrian rebel forces, in collaboration with Qatar and Saudi Arabia – and was very much in evidence when Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci was in Moscow this past week for a meeting of the Algerian-Russian High Commission. At a joint press conference on June 25, his opposite number Sergei Lavrov stressed the « convergence » of views between the two countries:
We found that our approaches to international issues have traditionally been close. We and our Algerian colleagues are in favor of the supremacy of international law and strengthening the key role of the United Nations in ensuring balance and stability in international relations.
On the question of terrorism and security, Lavrov added, acidly:
