The Lichfield Group

“The President [George W. Bush] congratulates [Algerian] President [Abdelaziz] Bouteflika on his [April 8] re-election. These elections represent another step on the road to democracy in Algeria,” according to the lavish praise from the White House. Indeed, Algeria’s landmark presidential election featuring six candidates, including a woman, a 60% voter turnout, and unprecedented transparency stole a march on President Bush’s greater Middle East democracy initiative. It culminated a decades-old indigenous and ongoing embrace of political liberalization despite the formidable vexations Algeria encountered in plucking the flower of democracy from the nettle of Islamic extremism. Algeria is eager to thicken trade, investment, and counterterrorism ties with the United States, to accelerate its democratic advances, and to set a model for President Bush’s democracy goals.

The authenticity of Algeria’s democratic credentials cannot reasonably be questioned. The Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Arab League, the African Union, the United States and the European Union dispatched up to 130 observers to monitor the presidential election on April 8. The balloting followed by two years the 2002 parliamentary elections which had been celebrated as free and fair by international monitors. Nine parties plus independents exhibiting a rainbow of competing ideologies captured seats.

The April 8 voting exercise was even more laudatory. Bruce George, a co-ordinator for the OCSE, amplified: “It was pretty clear this is what the people wanted. With our limited presence on the ground we did not see any fraud. It was not a perfect election, but by the standards of the region it was excellent and the gulf between European elections and what I saw yesterday has narrowed considerably.” Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee likewise found the openness and evenhandedness of the polling commendable.

Six candidates vied for the presidency sporting a wide array of political leanings. For the first time in the history of Arab nations, a female candidate, Ms. Louisa Hanoune sought the highest electoral office in government. She needed 75,000 signatures on a petition to qualify for the ballot, and received 1-2% of the vote. The Islamist challenger, M. Abdallah Djaballah, attracted less than 5% of popular support. The 60% voter participation was especially impressive because Algeria has only recently emerged from a decade of terrorist strife in which an estimated 150,000 people were killed, the lion’s share civilians.

The receding influence of the military was additionally noteworthy, as was the exclusion of anti-democratic Islamic extremists. Algeria’s initial plunge into multiparty parliamentary elections in 1992 was hijacked by the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS). It aimed to amend the constitution to enshrine Shariah as the supreme law of the land and to establish a carbon copy of Iran’s Guardian Council theocracy. The military intervened, outlawed the FIS, and insisted on revamping the constitution to prohibit political parties from organizing on the basis of religion. The latter proscription echoed the German constitution which prohibits neo-Nazi or Communist parties because of their anti-democratic ambitions. As United States Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson sermonized, a democratic covenant is not a suicide pact. And it seems indisputable that what FIS intended in Algeria was the death of democratic freedoms. Ali Benhadjar, a former FIS leader, declared in the aftermath of the April 8 polling that he and his followers coveted Shariah justice and Iran’s mullah dominated “democracy.”

The military intervention in Algeria to rescue rather than to shipwreck its budding political liberalization was no novelty. At present, Turkey sports a flourishing democracy perched to begin negotiations for admission to the European Union. But in reaching that happy political destiny, Turkey witnessed interventions by its military in 1960, 1971, and 1980 to prevent the nation from collapsing into chaos.

Algeria’s protection of free speech and press is exemplary in the greater Middle East. It hosts approximately 40 independent media publications. Satellite-dish antennas are widespread, and millions enjoy access to European and Middle East broadcasting. The independent press reports openly on such controversial issues as government wiretapping, corruption, and allegations of human rights abuses, including torture. Although newspapers are not owned by political parties, the latter enjoy access to the independent press where their views are expressed without government interference. Opposition parties also advocate their platforms through the Internet and in communiqués.

President Bouteflika has underscored that he would tilt in favor of liberty over security if and when the two collide. He has proven that democracy and counterterrorism work in tandem, not at loggerheads; and, that 9/11 is no excuse for resisting political reforms in the greater Middle East.

Idriss Jazeiry is Algeria’s Ambassador to the United States.