After Tunisia, Algeria was the first country that took to the streets last January and protests have so far never stopped. In the hope of ending street protests, the government embarked on a lengthy renewal process. There are 23 new political parties, parliament has acquired 73 additional seats and the debate on constitutional amendments has started again. At a social level, wages have been increased and over a million homes built, as promised by the president in 1999 when he was first elected.

The election campaign officially began on April 15th with the presentation of the final lists, but there are some who have embarked on a battle to encourage a boycott, such as the Culture and Democracy Group led by Said Saaid, which had 19 seats in parliament and now believes the government’s attitude is purely for the sake of appearances and also fears that Islamist movements will gain excessive power following post-Arab Spring results in other North African countries. The Islamic opposition consists of six parties, among them the Movement for Social Peace which is part of the current government.

There are also those who see these elections as the end of ten years of ostracism. The Socialist Forces Front led by Hocine Ait Ahmed, which has been excluded from parliament for a decade, has been allowed to run.

The process involving political evolution is still influenced by legacies of the past. Fifty years after independence from France was granted in 1962, the decade of violence and civil war that resulted in at least 200,000 people being killed between the end of the Eighties and the early Nineties, was brought up at recent protest events.

During the presidency of Chadli Benjedid, the country implemented a programme for economic revival and in the Eighties reforms addressed at making Algeria a free market had begun, but the fall in the price of oil in 1986 and the ensuing economic crisis resulted in growing instability and marked the beginning of the uprising against those in power.

Initially the regime reacted with political liberalization, passing an amendment to legalize the founding of a number of political parties. Among these there was the Islamic Redemption Front, which obtained great support from the people in the 1990 municipal elections and in the 1991 parliamentary elections, for the first time open to various political movements, but which were then annulled before the second ballot. After that Algeria experienced a crescendo of violence that lasted until Bouteflika was elected and a pardon was approved in 1999, which resulted in some Islamist groups laying down their weapons.

The May 10th elections will be the fourth multi-party elections held in the country since 1991, and are characterised by the parties’ awareness of the fragmentation of Algerian society and the complex relationship between citizens and those in power. It is no coincidence that there are 44 parties standing in these elections, with at least 200 independent lists battling for 462 seats in parliament. Attention is, however, addressed at two factors, the parties associated with the current government, the National Liberation Front led by President Bouteflika, and the National Rally for Democracy led by Prime Minister Ahmed Ouvahia. To these one must add the Green Alliance Algeria, a coalition of three Islamic parties created by the Movement for a Society of Peace, Ennahda, and El Islah, Reform.

While the level of success that the Islamist parties may achieve leads to the same issues already raised in Tunisia or in Egypt, the government’s most immediate fear is that people will not vote. In order to try and avoid a low turnout, the government is attempting to guarantee elections that are “transparent” and from the beginning of the elections campaign 40 European observers have been in the country, with another sixty expected to arrive at the beginning of May. In all there will be 500 international delegates entrusted with monitoring voting operations, of which at least one hundred provided by the Arab League.

Interior Minister Dahi Ould Kablia was unequivocal when he expressed fears about the post-election period, saying, “parliament will be so divided that no individual party will have enough support to gain a majority.”