The reinvigorated Hirak — in combination with the COVID-19 coronavirus crisis and collapsing oil prices — suggest that Algeria is heading into a perfect storm in which the line is being increasingly sharply drawn between the people (the Hirak) and the military regime.

The key issue in this prospective scenario is the way in which the pandemic crisis is managed. If it results in a catastrophic death toll — and if the people believe that the regime has been lying about the official numbers of cases and deaths — the people could turn their anger on President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

Meanwhile, although the regime is trying to paint a picture of national solidarity, the reality is rather different. While the Hirak and many citizen volunteer organisations are trying to help out the police are deliberately impeding volunteers. There are also several incidents of medical staff either taking strike action or reporting sick because of the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE).

There is a parallel between the current actions of the Hirak and its threat to the regime and what happened with the Front islamique du salut (FIS) in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the June 1990 municipal and provincial elections, the FIS won 55% of the popular vote. The government let the results stand, drawing some comfort from the fact that many voted for the FIS as a protest against a hated regime and 30 years of misgovernment and corruption by the Front de libération nationale (FLN). However, when it came to the December 1991 legislative elections the people voted for the FIS in seemingly even greater numbers. One reason for its popularity was that in the preceding 18 months it had shown that it could meet citizens’ demands and provide the basic essentials that the FLN government had failed to do. If the pandemic becomes the crisis that many Algerians fear, the people may start likening the Hirak and its associated civil society movements with the FIS of 1990-1991 and turn to it in even greater numbers when it eventually returns to the street.

However, that is perhaps where the parallel ends, because the Hirak is a far greater danger to the regime — to ‘le pouvoir’ — than the FIS was in 1991.  When the latter came to the brink of power, and especially soon afterwards, it had many enemies. They included: secularists, newspapers, academics, intellectuals and many others who opposed its overtly religious and extremist ideology. Today, the Hirak is supported by almost everyone, which therefore makes it a far more dangerous proposition to the regime than the FIS. With the Hirak, compared to the FIS, the lines are being drawn much more clearly. Algeria is currently being reduced to a so-far peaceful struggle between the Algerian people and a military state. The latest slogan, ‘When the Generals are in the dustbin, then Algeria will be independent’, captures the national mood. The FIS never had such universal support.

This excerpt is taken from Algeria Politics & Security, our weekly intelligence report on Algeria. Click here to receive a free sample copy.