Algerian President Abdulaziz Bouteflika claimed spectacular diplomatic success last month when he concluded security accords with the US and NATO and signed an economic agreement with the EU that provides, on his own insistence, for cooperation in the “war against terrorism”.
The Islamic Salvation Army (AIS), the armed wing of the banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), announced on June 6 that it would end its armed struggle against the government permanently, and place its forces under the states’s authority.
It would not be cynical to conclude that Algeria’s presidential election campaign will not produce new faces untainted by association with traditional power-elites,which are the usual arbiters of power in the country.
