Just two days earlier, another former dissident and leading figure of Tunisia’s revolution had been barred from entering. Sihem Bensedrine was allowed into the country after a seven-hour wait only after protests from fellow human rights activists.
The Arab Spring is knocking on Algeria’s door, but the authorities cannot decide whether to let it in or shut it out. Bensedrine, for one, believes the choice has been made.
“I think the Tunisian revolution is not particularly welcome,” Bensedrine told Reuters in the capital, Algiers.
Alone among its neighbours in North Africa, Algeria has been largely untouched by the uprisings which last year ousted leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen and touched off the revolt still raging in Syria. Helped by revenues from energy exports that have bequeathed it the world’s fourteenth biggest foreign exchange reserves, the Algerian authorities handed out pay rises, grants and subsidies that blunted a brief flare-up of protests demanding reform.
The country’s rulers continue to run the country much as they have since independence from France 50 years ago: with a huge state apparatus backed by the powerful security forces and elections dominated by the ruling FLN party and its allies. That is looking more and more out of step with the mood of the times, however, and a parliamentary election set for 10 May could be a watershed.
Pressure is building inside Algeria and abroad to ensure a fair election. As elsewhere in the Middle East, it is likely to give greater power to Islamists who for years have been pushed to the fringes by the strongly secularist state. “People expect Algeria to come into line with the region,” said a diplomat based in Algiers. “There’s an expectation that Islamists will have greater influence.”
Most independent observers predict that the ruling establishment will adapt to the new circumstances in the same way it has for decades when its hold on power has been challenged. Algeria will probably follow the model of neighbouring Morocco, the observers say. There, the ruling elite conceded to pressure by allowing a moderate Islamist opposition party to head a new government, but kept the levers of real power in its hands.
Western powers favour this scenario. They depend on the help of Algeria, the biggest military power in the region, to contain the spreading threat from Al Qaeda’s north African wing around the southern edge of the Saharan desert.
They also fear that any turmoil could disrupt the flow of natural gas through pipelines under the Mediterranean Sea. Algeria supplies about one fifth of Europe’s gas imports.
