By Dawud Aisha
Many Algerians, mostly the youths below 30 years, who make up 70% of all Algerian, have taken to the streets on demonstrations against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika fifth term bid in office. Most know their him only from still pictures on the evening television news. He has been seen only a handful of times in public since suffering a stroke in 2013 and has not given a public speech in years.
These youths whom have for years avoided politics in public, fearing trouble from the ubiquitous security services, or having simply stopped caring as the country has been run by the same group of men since the 1954-1962 independence war with France. After, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika decision to contest for the fifth time, the protester are determined to wheel out President Bouteflika forcefully or compliantly and never to be replaced by another veteran of the 1950's.
Bouteflik has been in government since the 1950's and has ruled since 1999, he is credited with ending a decade-long Islamist insurgency early in his rule. Caused by a reform process which ended abruptly when the army took power and scrapped elections that were about to bring the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front to power. This triggered a civil war that would last throughout the 1990s. Since the end of the civil war many Algerians have long tolerated a political system with little space for dissent as a price to pay for peace.
But since protests erupted in the capital and some 40 other towns on Friday, 22nd of February gainst the ruling party plans for the 81-year old leader to stand for a fifth term, a decades-old fear of public discussion of politics appears to have evaporated overnight.
The ruling elite made up of members of Bouteflika’s FLN party, the military and business tycoons have dug in its heels, warning of the prospect of unrest. Since the FLN again picked Bouteflika as its presidential candidate, several parties, trade unions and business groups have endorsed him.
From his crew is the Algerian Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Ahmed Gaid Salah who said "the army is ready for unexpected eventualities."
Salah, who is also Vice Minister of Defence, stressed that the army “will remain in control of the security situation,” as he put it.
Salah’s comments came after Bouteflika submitted his candidacy file at the Constitutional Council, amid rising protests against his candidacy for a fifth term.
Salah had pledged not to let the country return to the years of hardships and pain, in reference to the years of civil war in the 1990s, which Algerians call the “dark decade.”
Algerians have dark memories of the civil war triggered after the army cancelled an election that Islamists were poised to win in 1991. Two hundred thousand people are believed to have died in a near-decade of fighting.
Algeria saw major street unrest during the 2011 “Arab Spring” that brought down the rulers of North African neighbours Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. But police managed to curtail it without Bouteflika’s grip on power loosening.
More than a quarter of Algerians under 30 are unemployed, according to official data. The economy is dominated by state-owned firms controlled by the elite, under a system that dates to an era of close ties to the Soviet Union.