Algeria's contested elections

Middle East Report

Volumn , Issue 209, 1998, Pages 21-24

  Roberts, Hugh ^b  

^a LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS   (United Kingdom)

^b NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEMOCRATIZATION; ELECTION; POLITICAL SYSTEM;

ALGERIA;

EID: 0032414934     PISSN: 08992851     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3012730     Document Type: Article

References (5)

1. Bruno Etienne, L'Algerie, Cultures et Revolution (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1977), p. 98.
2. As was noted by, among others, Paul Rich and Sarah Joseph in Algeria: Democratic Transition or Political Stalemate? (London: Saferworld Report, May 1997), p. 10.
3. The legislative elections results, as officially announced, were subsequently modified on appeal; the FLN had its tally reduced from 64 to 62, the RND gained a seat, making its total 156, and the FFS gained a seat, making its final total 20, one more than its Kabyle rival, the RCD.
4. On June 5, I was able to observe polling in the town of Bouira (80 miles southeast of Algiers) and to interview local officials and candidates of the RND, FLN, FFS and RCD in both Bouira and Tizi Ouzou (where I also interviewed the head of the MSP list); none of them made any serious complaints about the way in which the voting process was being conducted at the local level.
5. From my fieldwork on local politics in the Kabylia region in the 1970s, I can affirm that these elections were taken very seriously by the local populations, at any rate in the countryside, notwithstanding the cynical view of them entertained at the time by opposition movements in exile.