The local and regional elections held last week in Algeria are intended by its government to complete a cycle of polls designed to bring the regime popular legitimacy after the horrendous killings and massacres of recent months and years. Presidential elections were held in 1995, a referendum to change the constitution in November last year, parliamentary ones last June. Several opposition parties contested the polls but the pro-government party easily won, amid widespread accusations of fraud and manipulation. Algerians are angry and bemused by the regime's suggestion that some sort of democratic normality has been achieved, given its repeated failure to prevent the dreadful cycle of violence.
The whole process is still fundamentally flawed by the fact that all these elections were boycotted by the main opposition parties based on the Islamist opposition, and illegal for that reason. Their exclusion goes straight back to the regime's refusal in 1992 to accept the parliamentary elections which gave the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) a majority. The decision strongly reinforced the armed forces' position and gave rise to the civil war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. Censorship, systematic intimidation of journalists and reporting restrictions have ensured that accounts and explanations of these events have been severely limited. But the mounting violence has recently attracted much more international attention and courageous reportage, amid calls that human rights must be respected and efforts made to bring the conflict to an end.
There are some signs that a political opening is possible. The guerrilla organisation attached to the main Islamist opposition party, FIS, has announced a ceasefire in a move that was highly publicised within Algeria. For it to do so there must have been political contacts with the regime. And it cannot be denied that the electoral and constitutional process undertaken by President Zeroual to restore representative and deliberative institutions which have been in suspension since 1992 has had some success. It has certainly not had the universal approval of those who support the regime, notably influential factions among the armed forces. There are many layers of bureaucratic and commercial privilege within Algeria who want to see a fight to the finish against the Islamic opposition, in addition to the secular forces who fear its fundamentalist programme.
There is now an opportunity to make progress towards political negotiations. Domestically sufficient contact has been made to enable the dialogue between the government and FIS to be developed further, despite diehard opposition in the armed forces. A wide range of views exists among the Islamist opposition, in which the extreme fundamentalists are a small minority. Internationally there is a much greater awareness that mediation efforts and if necessary economic and political pressure should be brought to bear on the Algerian conflict.