Algeria proposes constitutional reforms

Algeria’s government has published two significant draft constitutional reforms that seem intended to send out a message to critics of the country’s commitment to democracy.

Last Monday the Algerian presidency published plans to restrict serving presidents to two terms of office; it also wants to make Amazigh, spoken by the country’s indigenous Berber minority, an official language.

The government said the plans were intended to round off a series of reforms announced in 2011, following the Arab spring. The restrictions on the presidency will cancel out a change made in 2008 that enabled Algeria’s long-serving president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, to stand for a third term. Bouteflika won a fourth term of office in 2014, amid widespread allegations of electoral fraud.

Amazigh was granted “national language” status in 2002 and its recognition rewards the efforts of a long campaign hinging on the definition of Algeria’s national identity. In 1949 the issue triggered a serious crisis in the Algerian independence movement. The controversy was papered over when the war of independence started shortly afterwards, but resurfaced when independence was proclaimed in 1962. Hocine Aït Ahmed, one of the original leaders of the independence movement, advocated a democratic state guaranteeing political pluralism. But his ideas were soon thwarted by the authoritarian Pan-Arab credo that prevailed under presidents Ahmed Ben Bella (1963-65) and Houari Boumédiène (1965-1976).