Coup in Algeria: Takeover by the generals won't stop the fundamentalists

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12 SOCIALISTACTION FEBRUARY 1992 In the days following the recent military takeover in Algeria, Socialist Action reporter Barry Sheppard interviewed Aisha Moharabeh-a leader of the Algerian Fourth Internationalist organization, the Socialist Workers Party (PST). The coup was a response to the victory of the Islamic fundamentalists in the first round of the parliamentary elections.

Socialist Action: What led the National Liberation Front (FLN) to lose support to the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS)?

Aisha Moharab: I think that there were at least two elements. The FLN had been in power since 1972. It had imposed at least three periods of emergency rule on the country. In 1988, for the first time, the state sent tanks and the army against the youth and children rebelling against poverty. This happened in the streets of the capital and in other big cities as well. It was then that the break occurred between the masses and the party in power.

Since 1988, the ruling FLN, through the institutions of government, has been pursuing an antisocial policy. And in the last three years, the economic crisis in Algeria has grown much worse.

People were totally unwilling to be thrown back into poverty, when their country had had some international standing and a tolerable standard of living. So, the FLN is being accused today of having created poverty, as well as of having prevented the Algerian people from expressing themselves.

SA: What about the agreement the FLN government made with the International Monetary Fund (IMF)?

AM: Algeria has been in an economic crisis since the fall in oil prices. Thus, the origins of the crisis go back rather far. At the time of Boumedienne's death in 1978, with the new president (now the ex-president) Chadli Bendjedid, a new economic policy was initiated, which was called the Infita ["opening"].

Taking advantage of its position in the state bureaucracy, the petty bourgeois layer in power had accumulated enough capital to need more freedom to invest.

The opening up in 1988 that brought democratic freedoms also brought freedom for business. So for some years, they have been passing laws favoring free enterprise. This process was accelerated by the fact that Algeria had to turn to the international financial institutions for loans.

First of all, the government needed money to pay the interest on its debt, $7 billion a year. Secondly, Algeria is quite dependent on imported food-wheat, potatoes, and so on. Then, payrolls had to be met. The coffers were empty.

For the Algerian state, there was no question of making the millionaires pay. They chose to borrow, and they got into a vicious circle of indebtedness.

The IMF attached strings. Agreements were made that were were not disclosed to the Algerian people until October 1991. Even now, we do not know the stipulations exactly. What has been revealed is that the IMF rules out state subsidies for consumer goods and wage increases for the workers, and is demanding layoffs.

The trade-union federation in Algeria, the UGTA ( Algerian General Workers Union), has revealed that 500,000 workers are to be laid off in just the first two quarters of 1992. There is no plan for reindustrialization or development. The IMF agreed to lend some money for an attempt to salvage some nationalized enterprises that are in the red, but that is to better prepare them for privatization.

For the Algerians-who were shocked by the agreements with the IMF-this plan means not only more poverty and unemployment but a loss of national sovereignty. A statement made by the secretary of the UGTA caught on: "Our policy is no longer being made in Algiers; it is being made in Washington."

SA: What is the FIS?

AM: The Islamic Salvation Front was set up only in 1989, when multi-partyism was accepted by the Constituent Assembly. Before that, there had been a fundamentalist movement that functioned more like a constellation than a structured organization.

Between 1970 and 1980, there were some fundamentalist mobilizations. They were very quickly suppressed, just like the mobilizations of the left. The fundamentalist movement was tiny then.

In 1988, the government, more afraid of radicalization led by the left, chose to middle-class layers."

boost the fundamentalists. So, on the basis of a total myth fostered by the state-controlled media, the fundamentalists launched themselves by presenting themselves as the leaders of the 1988 youth revolt, which became a rebellion of the popular masses.

Little by little, they brought together all of the very poor into what you could call a "lumpen" party, as well as all those disappointed by the system, including many merchants. But the merchants organized in the FIS are not the really little merchants. The include the jewelers, known for being among the richest, and the proprietors of big Mozabite bazaars, which function almost like a national chain of department stores.

The leadership of the FIS is a universityeducated petty bourgeois leadership. It has been said that the FIS is linked to Saudi Arabia, among others, or financed by Pakistan. But it is clear that it has the means to get financing from a part of the commercial petty bourgeoisie and the newly constituted national bourgeoisie.

The FIS does not challenge the black market. Its solution for the unemployed youth, in fact, is advancing them a little money so that they can engage in blackmarket dealings. Or they give them tents for selling vegetables. That is, they give these youth an illusion of a job.

If the FIS has had so much success today, it is because there is no other party that stands out as the party of the people, the party of the poor, the party of the disinherited, the party determined to get rid of the government. The FIS gives the illusion of being such a party.

SA: What were the results of the first round of the elections? Was it surprising?

AM: The PST has said for a long time, for at least two years, that the FIS has been serving as a rallying point for the disinherited. We pointed out that all the campaigns waged by the free enterprise parties or the FLN presenting the FIS as a party of fanatics or fascists were wrong, that this sort of thing would make the base of the FIS more attached to it. And that is exactly what happened.

As time passed, the FIS more and more became to be seen as the party of the poor. The other parties that claim to be democratic were seen as parties of the middle-class layers.

We expected that the FLN would get a good vote because all the laws, passed by institutions it controlled, favored it. A tworound first-past-the-post electoral system promotes voting for the lesser evil. Thus, all those who didn't want to vote for the FIS could be pushed into voting for the FuN to make their votes count. We expected that the FIS and the FLN would get similar results.

So, like everyone else we were surprised by the elections, but maybe not for the same reasons. Out of 430 seats, the FIS won 188 in the first round. The FLN got only about 15. The FIS was also well placed for the second round. What surprised us was simply the size of the FIS victory.

Our assessment was that, unfortunately, the masses had chosen a retrograde leadership to express their opposition to the regime, a retrograde leadership that will turn its back on their interests. But the masses will only see this when the FIS is in power, and has to conduct some sort of policy.

The PIS does not have any program different from that of the FLN. It has said so itself. It said in the wake of the elections that it would respect all the contractual agreements, including those with the IMF.

SA: The PST ran candidates in the elections. How did you do?

AM: We got very modest results, but with such an electoral system we were surprised that there are still 6500 persons able to vote for socialism and for a socialist program. For us, that was already a good result.

SA: Wasn't there a big demonstration of women after the first round?

AM: There was an enormous demonstration called by the Front of Socialist Forces [a party based largely on the demand of the Berber people for cultural rights]. The slogan was "Neither a fundamentalist dictatorship nor a police state." It is clear that it is women who are most afraid of a PIS government.

But there has been another type of reaction—that of the bourgeois liberal groups who decided after the election that democratic rights no longer suited them. Among them are some women's associations. All those forces are grouped in the so-called Committee for Defense of the Republic. This committee called for a women's rally, which brought out between 1000 and 1500 women.

The organizers tried to get this women's rally to call for cancelling of the second round of the elections. Despite the attempt by those running the meeting to keep us from speaking, our comrades intervened. We explained that the defense of democratic liberties would never have any credibility in the eyes of the masses if women supported those who were violating the rules they themselves claimed to defend before the election.

The majority of the women left the hall, refusing to associate themselves with such a betrayal. But about 400 stayed and voted for the motion.

In Europe, this was presented as a unanimous position, that all Algerian women were demanding cancellation of the second round. This is false. Today, the women's movement in Algeria is quite split.

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"As time passed, the FIS more and more became to be seen as the party of the poor. The other parties that claim to be democratic were seen as parties of the