ALGERIA: Fraud plagued past polls but UN observers have been invited this time, writes Lara Marlowe.
Algeria almost gives the impression of being an Arab success story. "Only" 900 people died in political violence last year, after a decade in which as many as 200,000 were killed in the war between security forces and fundamentalist guerrillas. The economy grew 6.8 per cent, and the country earned $24 billion from gas and oil exports.
On April 8th, six candidates will compete in a presidential election. Past polls were plagued by fraud, but for the first time, the UN, the EU and the Arab League have been invited to send observers. The superficially democratic campaign masks a tug of war between the incumbent president, Mr Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and the army generals who put him in power five years ago. The generals have chosen all of Algeria's post-independence presidents, and their professed neutrality in this poll has left the country confused.
Is the military angry with "Boutef" and plotting a last- minute coup or postponement? Or are they remaining aloof, confident that the autocratic Mr Bouteflika is sure to win? The retired defence minister, Gen Khaled Nezzar, still wields great influence. Bouteflika was "the least bad candidate" in 1999, Nezzar wrote in Bouteflika, the Man and his Record, published last year in Algiers. The generals were impressed by Bouteflika's education and oratory skills. As a respected former foreign minister, he was the ideal "diplomatic firebreak" between the Algerian military and critics of corruption and human rights abuses.
To the generals, the loquacious little man who sweeps a strand of hair over his bald pate was something of a clown. But Bouteflika quickly proved to have ideas above his station. In 2000, he passed a "Law on Civil Concord" which offered a pardon to Islamist militants who turned themselves in. The military would have preferred televised confessions. Bouteflika went so far as to criticise the cancellation of Algeria's first free elections by the army in 1992. And he founded a commission to investigate the disappearance of up to 18,000 civilians during the 1993-1998 "dirty war".
Like most noble initiatives in Algeria, the commission went nowhere. Mr Muhammad Smain, the local leader of the Algerian Human Rights League in Relizane, western Algeria, recently discovered a mass grave, in which he was able to identify the remains of a man kidnapped by "patriots" (pro-government militiamen) in 1996. When Smain took his evidence to the paramilitary gendarmerie, they went to the site with the "patriots" and destroyed the evidence. Smain says there are a dozen such mass graves in his region. He is appealing a one-month prison sentence for "denunciation of imaginary crimes".
The presidential candidates have ignored an appeal by Amnesty International to take an interest in the mass graves. To do so would incur the disapproval of the army. President Bouteflika is widely reported to have made a pact with the generals: they let him stay in power, and he ensures their immunity from prosecution for war crimes.
The generals have been unsettled by books like Chronicle of the Years of Blood by Muhammad Samraoui, a former officer in the Algerian Sécurité Militaire. Mr Samraoui, who served as a military attaché in Germany, accuses Generals Nezzar, Belkheir, Touati and Taghit of founding the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), which carried out horrific massacres in the mid- to late-1990s, often killing hundreds of villagers in one night.
Gen Nezzar and the chief of staff of the armed forces, Gen Muhammad Lamari, have long said they want Algeria to adopt the "Turkish model", where the military does not intervene in the running of the country, but waits in the wings, in the event that feckless civilians mess things up.
Lamari has succeeded Nezzar as the real strongman of Algeria, and he does not like Bouteflika. Twice this year, Lamari has made cryptic warnings about the army being ready to defend the constitution and the need to ensure the independence of the administration and justice system.
Mr Bouteflika is widely accused of treating the government as his own property. "With him, it's absolute monarchy," Mr Ali Benflis, the most serious challenger for the presidency and Mr Bouteflika's former prime minister, told Le Monde. This month, Bouteflika used the courts to "freeze" the FLN party led by Mr Benflis, and to disqualify Dr Ahmed Taleb Ibrahimi, the runner-up for the presidency in 1999.
He has shut down Le Matin newspaper, whose editor, Muhammad Benchicou, published "Bouteflika: an Algerian Imposture". Bouteflika stands accused of exploiting his presidential office to campaign for the last seven months. He criss-crosses the country, shelling out money from the $7 billion development fund he presciently set up two years ago. State-run radio and television devote their evening programmes to his travels.
Educated Algerians now consider Bouteflika a despot, but he seems to have genuine support among the poor. His interior minister, Mr Yazid Zerhouni, says he cannot imagine announcing "any other victory than that of President Bouteflika".
Eight people from one family were gunned down at a fake army checkpoint 120 km south of Algiers on March 16th. At least 54 people have been killed in clashes with armed Islamists this month.
But security has improved vastly compared to a few years ago. That, along with the government's claim to be a US ally in the "war on terror" has achieved Algeria's rehabilitation. The US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, went to Algiers in December. Last month, Chinese President Hu Jintao made a state visit. AOPEC meeting followed.
High oil prices have endowed Algeria with $31 billion in cash reserves, and arms manufacturers are queuing to bid for army contracts. US special forces assisted the Algerian army in an operation against the GSPC (Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat) in southern Algeria.
Now Gen Lamari's fondest dream - Algerian membership in NATO - appears within reach. Washington reportedly wants Algeria and other Arab countries on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean to participate in NATO exercises and join in its grand strategy to "secure" the Middle East.