In Algeria, where it will soon be necessary to count the senior officers who have not been in prison (ten major generals, sixty generals and eighty-five colonels), the year 2024 was once again that of immobility. Indeed, instead of undertaking the vital reforms required by the economic and social situation of the country, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and General Saïd Chengriha, chief of staff-minister, first ensured the survival of ” System”, this nebula in which the military high command, the military-oil complex, the leadership of national Islam, the heads of parties and public institutions, are entangled, as well as the judges. The hard core of the “System” is the alumni association mujahideen (the ONM) of which, according to former minister Abdeslam Ali Rachidi, “everyone knows that 90% of these veterans, the mujahideen, are fake» (The WatanDecember 12, 2015).
Politically, the “System” trapped itself by having President Abdelmadjid Tebboune re-elected with 94.65% of the votes… Indeed, as the abstentions concerned at least 85% of voters, the “System”, which therefore lost the little legitimacy that remained to it, therefore appeared to be more than ever cut off from the population.
A “System” which, moreover, has an economic sword of Damocles hanging over its head, due to Algeria's total dependence on hydrocarbons, and therefore the variability of their prices. Oil and gas provide, year after year, between 95 and 98% of exports, and around 75% of the budgetary revenues of an Algeria which, having not learned the lesson of the crises of 1986, 1990 and 1994, has still not significantly diversified its economy.
However, stuck on the monoproduction of hydrocarbons, the exportable volumes of which should fall due to the increase in domestic consumption and the progressive exhaustion of deposits, and this despite the announcements of new discoveries, Algeria will have to satisfy the basic needs of a rapidly growing population. In January 2024, the country had 46.7 million inhabitants (12 million in 1962), with an annual growth rate of 2.15% and nearly 900,000 births each year.
“Instead of looking at the causes of Algerian diplomatic failures, particularly that of Saharan policy, the leaders of Algiers are sticking to their blind support for the Polisario.”
The insoluble problem facing the “System” in the face of this demographic bomb is that, not producing enough to clothe, care for, equip and feed its population, Algeria must therefore buy everything abroad. In 2024, a quarter of revenues from hydrocarbons will be used for the sole import of basic food products… of which Algeria was an exporter before 1962.
Another major problem, instead of looking at the causes of Algerian diplomatic failures, particularly that of Saharan policy, the leaders of Algiers are sticking to their blind support for the Polisario. However, this movement, which has understood that its fight for the creation of a Sahrawi “State” is lost, has undertaken to “diversify” its activities by specializing in trafficking (see on this subject my previous column entitled “Algeria : the Polisario, a state within a state?).
The site Maghreb Intelligence thus revealed that search operations carried out in Algerian airports and ports would have led to the discovery of large quantities of drugs hidden in luggage bound for Tindouf, headquarters of the Polisario. Following which, instructions were given to the Algerian security services to no longer control members of the Polisario involved in these criminal networks.
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