Both Algeria and Syria held elections this month — in Syria on May 7 and in Algeria on 10 May. Did these elections change the configuration of power in either country? There was evidently no such intention. If anything, the elections confirmed the continued political dominance of the National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria and the Ba‘th Party in Syria. Alone or in coalition with lesser partners, the FLN has ruled Algeria in the half century since independence in 1962, while the Ba‘th in Syria has enjoyed a virtual political monopoly since seizing power in 1963.
Algeria has, however, moved towards something like a multi-party system over the past decade, while Syria has recently changed its Constitution, ending the Ba‘th’s political monopoly and opening the way for the licensing of eleven new parties. These reforms have been widely criticised as too little, too late. The United States dismissed this month’s Syrian elections as “ludicrous.”
Both the Algerian and Syrian regimes are, of course, fully aware that anything like a genuine process of political reform would eventually lead to the dismantling of the existing power structures, something neither is yet prepared to tolerate.
In both countries, the turnout for the elections was low, either because of considerable apathy as in Algeria, or in Syria because of continued violence. Nevertheless, 7,195 candidates in Syria from 12 parties competed for 250 parliamentary seats, while in Algeria — where 44 parties took part, as well as about 150 independents — the Ministry of Interior claimed that 44.38% of the electorate cast their vote, a figure the opposition promptly denounced as fraudulent. As the Algerian proverb has it, “It is when the voting booth is empty that the ballot box is full.”
Both regimes share a fear of radical Islam. In Algeria, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) has been dissolved and any reincarnation of it forbidden. When it was poised to win the 1991 elections, the regime intervened forcibly, scrapping the second round. This precipitated a savage 10-year civil war in the 1990s, which resulted in the death of between 100,000 and 200,000 people. Memories of that cruel contest are still fresh, which perhaps accounts for a certain disillusion with parliamentary politics.
To neutralise jihadi extremists, the Algerian regime has in recent years encouraged a number of moderate Islamist parties to emerge. Members of these parties have been included in coalition governments. Three moderate Islamic parties have formed a so-called Alliance for a Green Algeria (Green for Islam rather than ecology), which was widely expected to do well at this month’s elections. But, contrary to all predictions, the Alliance did poorly: The number of its parliamentary seats slumped from 72 to 48. It did, however, top the vote in capital Algiers — the country’s largest constituency — winning 15 out of the 37 seats. In contrast, the FLN won 220 seats, nearly doubling its representation. It will, as usual, dominate the 462-seat National People’s Assembly, as well as any future coalition government — if it decides to form one. Its potential partners are its sister party, the National Democratic Rally (68 seats) and the Alliance for a Green Algeria (48 seats). The premiership in the next government may even go to an Alliance member.
Some would argue that political Islam in Algeria has been tamed by inclusion in the system — unlike the situation in, say, Tunisia, Egypt and even Morocco where Islamists, repressed for decades, have emerged triumphant at elections. Algeria may indeed have broken the pattern of militant Islamic resurgence which has been such a striking feature of the Arab uprisings. Indeed, a remarkable result of the Algerian elections was the surge in women deputies. Women won 115 seats, some 30% of the total — surely a first in any Arab country.
Much like the FIS in Algeria, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is also banned — indeed it has been outlawed since its armed uprising against President Hafiz al-Asad in 1976-1982, which was brutally crushed at Hama in February 1982 with the loss of at least 10,000 lives, and possibly many more. Many Muslim Brothers fled abroad at that time, where they continued to harbour a virulent hatred of the Asad regime. The memory of these violent events still haunts the country. Fear of a radical Islamist movement bent on vengeance goes some way to explaining the Syrian regime’s ruthlessness in dealing with the uprising.
A revived Muslim Brotherhood is today the most powerful element in the opposition to President Bashar al-Asad. The exiled Syrian National Council, the Turkey-based umbrella group under which the Muslim Brothers operate, has come out openly in favour of arming the opposition, while also calling for foreign military intervention. Jihadi terrorism — such as the two massive blasts in Damascus on May 10 which killed 55 people and injured 372 — has become an ugly fact of life.
Syria has evidently been destabilised by the opposition’s hit-and-run guerrilla campaign, but it has not yet experienced a civil war on the Algerian model. That may well be what awaits the country if the opposition and its foreign backers continue their efforts to topple the regime — and thereby weaken its Iranian ally — whatever the cost in Syrian lives. These foreign backers include the United States (with Israel in the background), Qatar, Saudi Arabia and France (when Nicolas Sarkozy was President. François Hollande, France’s new President, is thought to be less hostile to Syria and Iran than his predecessor.)
Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Algeria and Bashar al-Asad in Syria are incumbents of a powerful institution — the Presidency. They occupy the front of the political scene in their respective countries. But behind the presidency — and propping it up — are the intelligence services, both civilian and military. In Algeria, military intelligence is thought to be the place where all major decisions are taken and all senior appointments made. In Syria, the civilian intelligence services seem the more influential, but this is an opaque and changing scene.
Compared to Syria, which is now in torment, Algeria gives an image of relative stability, no doubt due to its massive oil revenues of some $60bn last year. This has allowed the regime to buy off some of its critics. Syria can only dream of such wealth. Both countries, however, live in a dangerous environment: Algeria is flanked by Libya, still alarmingly awash with guns and gunmen; by Morocco, with which it is still at odds over the future of the Western Sahara; and further south by Mali, now in the grip of a Tuareg rebellion and of terrorist Islamist groups.
Syria’s situation is even more perilous. The armed uprising it is facing at home is only one of its problems. It also finds itself confronting powerful external enemies who are striving to bring down not only the Syrian regime itself but the whole Tehran-Damascus-Hizbullah ‘resistance axis’. Overshadowing Syria’s fortunes — as it has for the past six decades — is the menacing presence on its borders of an expansionist Israel, armed to the teeth, determined to impose its will on all its neighbours. Neither in Algiers nor Damascus is political life much of a holiday.
Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press).
Copyright © 2012 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global
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Released: 15 May 2012
Word Count: 1,175
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