Yearbook 2008
Algeria. At least 130 people - most police, military and
militiamen but also a number of civilians - were killed
during the year in police-military violence and the armed
Islamist group al-Qaeda's organization in the Islamic
Maghreb. The bloodiest attack occurred on August 19, when 43
people, most of them applicants to a police school, were
blasted to death five miles east of Algiers.
According to
Countryaah reports, Parliament voted for a constitutional amendment on
November 12 that would allow President Abdelaziz Bouteflika
to be re-elected in March 2009 for a third term in office.
According to the previous constitution, the president was
only allowed to hold his post for two periods of five years.
In June, Bouteflika appointed Ahmed Ouyahia, leader of
the large regime-friendly party National Democratic Assembly
(RND), as new prime minister, a post he also held in
2003-06. He replaced Abdelaziz Belkhadem, who instead became
Minister without Portfolio and President Bouteflika's
personal representative.
On a visit by France's Prime Minister François Fillon in
the country. June 21-22, the countries agreed on enhanced
cooperation on nuclear energy expansion in Algeria and on
military-industrial cooperation.
Independent
Algeria was declared independent on July 5, 1962, and by
the end of the year elections were held for the Constituent
Assembly. But the FLN stood without a coherent political
program, and the personal, political and ethnic
contradictions within the liberation front now turned into
an inner power struggle. The alliance between the political
bureaucracy leader, Ahmed Ben Bella, and the chief of staff,
Houari Boumedienne, came to represent the victorious trend.
Ben Bella was elected president in 1963 and reaffirmed his
position at the party congress in 1964. But Ben Bella
inherited a political and economic chaos after some 900,000
Europeans fled in a few months in 1962. and other values
were in many cases destroyed. The Algiers occupied the
colony properties, Units that were collectively led
by the workers themselves. Ben Bella wanted to further
develop the national revolution into a socialist revolution,
with the main elements being "workers' rule" and the state's
takeover of the means of production. However, the
nationalization of private property affected both national
and foreign property and small as well as large properties.
At the same time, the "workers' government" came under
bureaucratic control and lost much of its opinion. Ben Bella
was also charged with inability to clean up the
administrative chaos that existed and to build too strong
personal leadership.
Race against Ben Bella
The dissatisfaction of the bourgeoisie and the army grew,
and a group around Boumedienne headed a bloody coup on June
19, 1965. Ben Bella was arrested and placed in long-term
isolation arrest. The coup was then called the "historic
recovery" of the revolution, while the Ben Bella period had
brought the revolution into a dead end. However, the
Boumedienne takeover of power meant concessions to the
bourgeoisie regarding the nationalization of private
property - including in that some nationalized property was
given back to its former owners. The army had supported the
coup, and an alliance now arose between the landowners, the
army and the state apparatus.
Boumedienne launched an accelerated industrialization
program based on the export of liquid oil and natural gas.
There was an economic expansion, which was not reflected in
the countryside, however. The population grew faster than
food production and Algeria went from being food exporting
to being food importing. In the cities, strikes erupted.
Houari Boumedienne died in December 1978. In 1976 a new
constitution had been adopted and in 1977 representatives
had been elected to the National Assembly. They now
appointed Colonel Chadli Bendjedid as new president. The
FLN's 4th Congress in January 1979 almost unanimously
elected Bendjedid as party leader and reaffirmed his
presidential position. The new president initiated a policy
of relaxation. Ben Bella who had been in solitary
confinement for 14 years. The ban on travel abroad was
lifted, taxes were lowered and restrictions on the
construction of private housing were removed. The large
state companies began to be divided into smaller units. The
restructuring of inefficient government enterprises was
encouraged and private companies encouraged. |
