President Abdelaziz Bouteflika (C) meets his ministers in this handout picture provided by the APS news agency July 16, 2024
Less than two weeks after Algeria’s ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika nabbed a fourth term in the April 17 election, the grassroots opposition group Barakat (enough! in Algerian Arabic) is continuing to mount resistance. The movement, which was established on March 1 to oppose Bouteflika’s bid, filed a request with the Constitutional Council Tuesday to impeach the president, citing his troubling performance during Monday’s inauguration, when Bouteflika struggled to recite the presidential oath of office. Barakat argues that Bouteflika’s inability to read the entire text is justification for his impeachment.
Here, Barakat is seizing on a nationwide concern about Bouteflika’s capacity to govern, which took center stage in the lead up to presidential elections. After suffering a mild stroke last year, the president spent three months in a Paris hospital and has made scant public appearances since. Monday’s inauguration was one of few. But a visibly feeble and wheel chair confined Bouteflika did little to mute doubts about his condition. Barakat leaders aren’t the only ones pouncing on the president’s faltering performance; in a scathing editorial entitled “Bouteflika flunked his oral,” Algeria’s leading periodical El Watan called the “tragicomic event” far from reassuring. The French-language daily Liberté noted that Bouteflika confused “referendum” with “ballot” and read only the preamble of his 12-page speech.
Despite all the noise, however, it remains unlikely that Bouteflika will step down. Not with the ruling National Liberation Front staunchly behind the president (and buoyed by Algeria’s security forces and intelligence services). But as we noted earlier this month, growing economic frustration, compounded by political stagnation, could prove the impetus needed to transform Algeria’s inchoate opposition movement into a credible political player. Indeed, the presidential election sparked a rare resurgence of Algeria’s domestic opposition, including unprecedented alliances between secular and Islamist parties, and even rumblings among the country’s political elite.
Barakat, in particular, could prove a serious challenger to the status quo in Algeria. The grassroots movement’s growing influence is evidenced by the recent arrests of Barakat members, reported death threats sent to its leaders, and intimidation by state-controlled media. Little wonder; Barakat is cultivating a support base among Algeria’s middle class by playing off economic concerns, i.e., increasing unemployment, as well as frustration with government corruption. What’s more, it is reaching out to influential civil society groups and trade unions for support. (Note that the secular opposition in neighboring Tunisia made a similar move while trying to unseat the country’s Islamist-led government – it worked.) Though it’s still early days, Barakat’s gamble may pay off — if it can maintain its current Arab Spring-inspired momentum that is.
