Political Opposition In Algeria A Frustrated Hope

Abstract

The position of opposition parties in Algeria’s national elections before and during Bouteflika’s presidency is hardly examined in studies of democratization in Algeria. The paper considers this problem by focusing on two interrelated issues. Firstly, before Bouteflika’s presidency, political opposition had produced only a limited increase in systematic re-organization of political parties and credible political programmes that prepare opposition parties and figures for democratic government. Secondly, regardless of the nature and quality of participation by political parties and their competition in parliamentary and presidential elections during the presidency of Bouteflika, opposition political parties have continued to be ineffective in presenting alternative political programmes to the president and his party, and they suffer from fragmentation. The paper assesses through comparison between the two periods how political opposition in Algeria has failed to carry out its role as a political counterweight to Bouteflika and before him to the military. The key conclusion is that the performance of Algeria’s opposition parties indicates that the multiparty system that emerged in the late 1980s is still weak, which makes democratic progress largely slow.