Until 1989 Algeria had a single-party system dominated by the National Liberation Front (Front de Libération Nationale, FLN). At the time of Boumedienne’s rule, the small Algerian Communist Party (Parti Communiste Algérien) was allowed to be active, up to a certain point. Shortly after independence, one of the FLN’s historic leaders, Hocine Aït Ahmed, founded the Socialist Forces Front (Front des Forces Socialistes, FFS), which gained legal recognition only in 1989. The sudden liberalization between 1989 and 1991 saw the proliferation of many other political organizations, most importantly the Islamic Salvation Front (Front Islamique du Salut, FIS), which has been banned since it was declared illegal in 1992. With the resumption of parliamentary elections in 1997, many parties were allowed to compete, but this pluralism has not translated into a reallocation of power. The election outcomes are often heavily contested by the opposition, as well as by NGOs and in the media. Formal and informal restrictions make it difficult for parties to wield real power. The opposition therefore struggles repeatedly with the question of whether or not to take part in elections.
The 2012 parliamentary elections resulted in a major victory for the FLN, which, together with the National Democratic Rally (Rassemblement National Démocratique, RND), obtained an absolute majority of seats. The Islamist block scored far lower than predicted, especially by its leadership, while the FFS declared that its 20 seats were in line with expectations. More significant still was the level of participation, as reported by the government, of only 42 percent, with far lower turnouts in the capital. This sign of distrust was compounded by strong protests by the opposition, which accused the government of widespread fraud and manipulation of the elections.
In terms of the number of seats in Parliament, the main political groups are the ‘institutional’ parties FLN and RND. Having originated in the liberation movement, the former state party FLN has always encompassed a variety of ideological currents, regional interests, and personal ambitions.
Throughout recent history – to mention but a few examples – socialist and liberal tendencies competed to succeed Boumedienne; Islamic conservatives within the party won the debate on the Family Law; and overambitious reformers struggled with staunch bureaucrats over how to deal with the bankrupt economy.
This sort of pluralism within a single party has, in a way, continued since the FLN lost its monopoly. This has not prevented it from being a major – often the main – party in Parliament and in the provincial and municipal councils.
The RND was created in 1996 by the then head of state, General Liamine Zéroual, at the time when the FLN-leadership was at odds with the military establishment and even joined the FIS (and the FFS) in a pact aimed at stopping the civil war. Since then, the RND has provided some prime ministers in alternation with the FLN. In general, the party programmes and actual policies of the two parties, which are presently both allied with President Bouteflika, are hard to tell apart.[/fusion_text]
Islamists
The ban on the FIS in 1992 did not spell the end of Islamist party activism. While the military and political leadership blamed the Front for all the violence that followed the cancellation of the elections at the time, they did not prevent other proponents of political Islam from taking part in formal political life. This has much to do with the huge, often overlooked, differences within the Islamist current that already existed when the FIS came into existence. Some leading Islamists, such as Sheikh Mahfoud Nahnah, strongly opposed the radical populism of the FIS and instead promoted a strategy of gradual Islamization of society. He founded his own party, which later came to be known as the Movement for the Society of Peace (Mouvement de la Société pour la Paix, MSP; formerly called Hamas). Under his successors, the MSP has been a partner in several coalition governments. In 2012 it entered a union with two other Islamist parties, under the banner of the Green Algeria Alliance (Alliance de l’Algérie Verte, green being the colour of Islam).
Another prominent Islamist who emerged on the political scene towards the end of the 1980s is Abdallah Djaballah. He has founded three parties, of which the Islamic Renaissance Movement (Mouvement de la Renaissance Islamique; al-Nahda, or Ennahda, Renaissance, for short) and the Movement for National Reform (Mouvement pour la Réforme Nationale; al-Islah, Reform, for short) continued without their leader and joined the Green Alliance. With a new party, Djaballah took part in the parliamentary election of 2012.
Although the Alliance came third in the 2012 elections and it has been assumed that voting irregularities took place, it is also clear that these Islamist parties are no longer regarded as opposing the political system.
Secularists
The secularist current builds on a long tradition of ideas and organizations within the Algerian national movement. This is particularly true for the various shades of socialist ideas, and, to a lesser extent, liberal ones. Although the socialist tendency within the FLN at times strongly manifested itself, the official ‘Algerian socialism’ was often deemed a vague nationalist amalgam that also included an insistence on Islam as the state religion. It is therefore not surprising that several leftist parties have emerged since 1989. The Workers’ Party (Parti des Travailleurs, PT) is a Trotskyist group and one of the few parties headed by a woman, Louisa Hanoune. The party pleads for social rights and strongly opposes further denationalization and the growing role of multinationals in the Algerian economy.
The FFS has a more social-democratic profile and is the oldest contender with the FLN and the military that ruled in its name. It is the only secular party with a mass base, but this following is limited largely to the party’s stronghold among the Berber population in (or originating from) Kabylia. This also applies to the Rally for Culture and Democracy (Rassemblement pour la Culture et la Démocratie, RCD), whose support is more middle-class in origin and liberal in outlook. The rivalry between the two parties extends beyond their competition for the Berber vote but points to broader questions with which secular parties – in Algeria and elsewhere in the Arab world – are struggling: how to deal with Islamism, and how this affects the relationship with the (military) leadership. In the 1990s the secular parties and civil-society organizations were divided over whether to support the cancellation of elections in order to prevent the FIS from winning. Since the end of the civil war, the FFS and RCD have struggled with their position in a political system that provides them space to manifest themselves but that they regard as hardly democratic.
In 1997 the FFS decided to take part in the first parliamentary elections after the coup, then boycotted elections, before again taking part in elections, in the May 2012 vote. The RCD, a staunchly secularist party, conversely even took part in a coalition government including the Islamist MSP. Both parties also had difficulties connecting with social movements. The uprising in Kabylia in 2001 was largely the doing of local grassroots committees, and in 2011 the RCD’s attempt to capture the mood of the Arab Spring was short-lived.