Authors: Sadek Hadjal and Samar Sahki
Ten factors and mechanisms adopted by both Algerian people and its army have made popular movement remain in its proper peaceful path
Since February 22, 2019, the Algerian popular movement has calmed anger on the streets every Friday demanding the departure of Abdelaziz Bouteflika and his regime. The last decade of the 20 years of his mandate was characterized by a high-level of corruption and mismanagement, especially, after his illness. Although after the resigned of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, people have continued to march demanding the complete change of the old regime.
Until now, after nearly 11 weeks, the Algerian popular movement has succeeded in achieving several goals without violence, giving a good image for Arab region witnessed the same events after a huge popular movement in 2011, called “the Arab spring”. but unlike what is happening today in Algeria, the so-called “Arab spring” led to a bloody and dangerous consequences for the Arab countries – civil wars, military interventions, displacement, illegal immigration, proxy wars in the context of international and regional rivalry-.
The success of the Algerian Popular Movement reflects a great deal of intelligence and awareness between the Algerian demonstrators on one hand, satisfaction, wisdom and professionalism of the Algerian military in dealing with the situation on the other hand. Certainly, the two parties in Algeria -the demonstrators and the military command- have benefited from the events of the so-called “Arab Spring” in 2011, which unfortunately led to disastrous results in most Arab countries. As well as what was known by “black decade” that Algeria witnessed in the 1990s.
In order to learn lessons from these events, the Algerian elites organized many international and national academic seminars, discussed several doctoral dissertations at universities, and produced many television programs to analyze the causes of these bloody events and to discover the best ways to avoid similar events, based on the reject of all kinds of external intervention as a main idea in any discussion.
There is a method both the Army and the demonstrators have relied on to success until now, which is characterized by:
From the side of protestors, they have focused on:
1 Avoiding the confrontation with military and police officers, unlike what happened in “Arab spring” countries.
2.Trying to coax the military and police officers to be with their side through the slogans.
2.Avoiding acts of violence and vandalism by keeping protests pacific.
3. Reject any religious, ethnic, or political group or party or symbols to represent them.
4.Focusing on pragmatic demands that have nothing to do with ideological discourses.
5.Refuse any external intervention whatsoever, whether there was supporting the movement or against it.
From the other side military command has focused on:
1.Not aligning against the popular movement. Otherwise, we would face a disaster situation may be more than what happened in some Arab countries.
2.The Army interference to align with the popular movement, but after confirming that there is no political solution on the horizons and that the situation could get worst.
3.The commitment of Military command by the constitution; which means passing a message that there is no intention to a military coup.
4.Not taking any step unless the popular movement demands it strongly and forcefully through the slogans carried every Friday. So that the steps taken by the Army won’t be in doubt, critic, or exploitation.
5.Provide guarantees to judges to do their work against corrupt people.
By these ten factors, the Algerian popular movement succeeded to achieve fifty percent of Goals (isolated Bouteflika and arrested the most famous symbols of the old regime on corruption charge). Now, the rest of the Goals are more difficult to achieve than the first one. The next step will focus on how to achieve a democratic system that results in accountability and empowers people to control the ruler. Whatever; until now the Algerian popular movement presents a Successful model can the rest of Arab societies benefit from.
What next:
To realize the rest of the goals, the Algerian popular movement and the Army must keep these ten mechanisms but also avoid any confrontation between them. Today there is a controversy between the two sides about the next stage; the Military command wants to hold quick presidential elections as soon as possible under Article 102 of the constitution because according to its view, any political solutions out of the constitution can lead to chaos. But the question here is who ensure that elections will be democratic under the same faces of the old regime and rules (election law for example). in return, there are a lot of citizens insist on carrying out a transition period to get rid of all old regime symbols in order to ensure presidential elections based on international standards, rather than the elections under the old regime symbols (the interim president Ahmed ben salah, and the current government of Noureddine Bedoui). But the question here is who leads this transition period? If the answer was through elect representatives, so who organize and ensure the transparency of these elections! The transition period will create a constitutional vacuum that possibly leads to chaos and that’s why Military command don’t wanted .
Algeria now is in front of a big constitutional and political dilemma, there are solutions but to maintain all possible solutions, we must avoid any confrontation between citizens and the military command. Of course, the popular movement has all the right to pressure and demand what it looks appropriate as a solution but without entering in confrontation with the military, because, in the end, the military has played a positive major role until now.
Algeria has the ability to overcome the current state crisis and emerge from the events of the popular movement as a regional force because it has a new generation of educated and ambitious youth, a well-equipped military force with experience in the field of counter-terrorism, and large energy reserves of oil and gas.
