Algeria elections: 'Hoax' or 'path to democratic change'?

2012-02-18

ALGIERS – A secular party in Algeria has announced it will boycott elections in May. Rally for Culture and Democracy party chief Said Saadi said Friday the elections would be a "hoax" and the assembly chosen could just be dissolved by the new president set to be elected in 2014.

The party's power base is the ethnically Berber Tizi-Ouzou region east of the capital. It boycotted elections in 2002, but ran in 2007, gaining 19 seats in the 390-person assembly and 3.36 percent of the vote.

Meanwhile, Ali Laskri, general secretary of the Socialist Forces Front said upcoming elections may spark real change in Algeria, as political figures came forward to launch parties after the relaxing of laws in the wake of the Arab Spring.

"It is not too late that (the elections) become a path to democratic change and towards a more transparent institutional framework, more predictable and reassuring," said Laskri, a longtime dissident party in Algeria.

Laskri spoke at the party's national convention set to debate participation in the May 10 legislative elections, a question facing many of Algeria's political movements, some only just created.

Political figures, including several former ministers, have scrambled to create parties after the regime, dominated by the National Liberation Front, or FLN, freed up political laws in response to the protest movement that has swept the Arab world.

Seventeen new parties have been authorized to hold their first congresses under a new law passed last month following reforms announced by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Ex-Industry Minister Abdelmadjid Menasra announced the creation of a new Islamist party on Friday while former Health Minister Amara Benyounes announced his secularist party would participate in the May poll.

"We are going to contribute to change Algerians yearn for and offer hope to the young," Menasra said at the launch of his party, the Change Front.

The Socialist Forces boycotted the last two legislative elections in 2002 and 2007 and opposition parties have repeatedly denounced fraud by the FLN ever since the introduction of a multi-party system in 1989.

The current parliament is dominated by the FLN, which has played a key role in Algerian politics since it led the way to independence from France in 1962.

Algeria is a major oil and gas producer, a sector that accounts for almost all of its foreign earnings.

Other sectors of the economy are underdeveloped, however, and youth unemployment was running at 21 percent last year, according to the World Bank.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=50713.