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1 [1] (February 26, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govebbq0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional Research Service Inforrming the legislative debate since 1914 0 February 26, 2019 Algeria: In Focus Algeria's political system, characterized by a strong presidency and security apparatus, has remained stable amid regional upheaval. Internal security has also improved since a decade-long Islamist insurgency and civil conflict in the 1990s. State decisionmaking is often opaque, however, and the country faces an uncertain political transition as members of the revolutionary generation that fought for independence from France retire or pass away. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika (81) is in ill health and rarely appears in public. Frequent labor strikes and street protests are often framed around socioeconomic grievances, but in February 2019, large protests against Bouteflika's bid for a fifth term in office also seemed to convey widespread desire for new leadership among the country's youthful population. Decreased revenues from Algeria's oil and gas exports have arguably constrained the government's options for responding to such unrest. Politics President Bouteflika's stated intent to run for a fifth five- year term in April 2019 has focused attention on succession issues. Term limits were reinstated in 2016 (after being abolished in 2008) but do not apply retroactively. The president reportedly suffered a stroke in 2013. He has since been confined to a wheelchair and appears visibly frail. Bouteflika won 82% of the vote in 2014. Top opposition candidate Ali Benflis, a former prime minister, decried the results as fraudulent, while some observers asserted that Bouteflika remained broadly popular. Experts nonetheless point to political paralysis due to a lack of elite consensus over the general outline of the post-Bouteflika era. Bouteflika was first elected in 1999, with military backing, as Algeria's counterinsurgency against armed Islamist groups was winding down. He used his first term to advance reconciliation initiatives. He has also sought to consolidate executive powers under the presidency, in part by restructuring the military and asserting greater control over the powerful military intelligence service. The bicameral parliament is institutionally weak and dominated by two parties supportive of Bouteflika: the National Liberation Front (FLN), which led Algeria's fight for independence and was the sole legal party for decades, and the National Rally for Democracy (RND). The political opposition is diverse and divided: it includes leftist, Berber- led, Islamist, and regionally-focused groups. Many parties-including the FLN-also exhibit internal divisions. Some analysts argue that political Islam has been discredited in Algeria due to Islamists' role in the 1990s civil conflict, or-alternatively-due to some Islamist politicians' subsequent accommodation with the state. The Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), whose rapid electoral gains in 1991 sparked a military coup and the subsequent conflict, remains banned. Religiously conservative Salafist social movements have grown in prominence since the conflict. Figure I. Algeria at a Glance Population: 41.7 million i Languages~ Arabic (ic ial), A9 Frenh, er dialects Reigions: Muluim (official, proccm. Gl Suni)9%, other, (2012) Life Expectancy: 77 years Population Under 24 Years Old: 45%' Uteracy:'T (2O1 GDP: gro h ra:e 2.5'; per capita $4,45C Unemployment: ' 1.6 Exports: per oleum, natural gas, a:nd petroleum products Imports: capital goods, ondstuffs co isumer acnds Source: CRS graphic; data from CIA World Factbook + IMF (2018). Terrorism and Counterterrorism Terrorist threats persist, particularly in southern and eastern border regions, but the pace of attacks has decreased since a 2013 assault on a natural gas compound in which 39 foreign nationals (including three Americans) were killed. Recent attacks have targeted security force outposts near the eastern border with Tunisia, where small cells linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) reportedly remain active. Since the start of wars in Libya and Mali in 2011, Algerian security forces have bolstered their presence in border regions and conduct frequent counterterrorism operations. The government also runs de-radicalization programs and seeks to control the content of religious sermons. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a regional network and U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, is the offshoot of an insurgent faction from Algeria's 1990s conflict. An AQIM splinter faction claimed responsibility for the aforementioned 2013 gas plant attack. AQIM's leader or emir, Abdel Malek Droukdel, reportedly remains based in Algeria's mountainous northeast, but the group's center of gravity has moved south into Mali over the past decade. (Since 2017, AQIM's southern branch has been subsumed under a Mali-based jihadist coalition known as the Group for Supporting Islam and Muslims, or JNIM after its transliterated Arabic name.) AQIM elements and offshoots are also active in Libya and Tunisia, as are IS- linked factions. In 2014, an Algerian IS affiliate beheaded a French tourist. Algerian security forces reportedly killed the faction's leader the following year and they appear to have been effective in preventing the further spread of IS-linked groups within the country. Algerian foreign fighters were reportedly well represented among Islamist militant groups in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq from the 1980s to the mid-2000s. At the height of IS territorial holdings in Iraq and Syria (2014- 2015), however, relatively few Algerians reportedly joined https:lcrsreports. cong ress.gox