After the 2012 and 2017 alliances, why did Algeria's Islamists disperse in the parliamentary elections?

Among the paradoxes recorded among the Algerian Islamic trend in light of the parliamentary elections to be organized on June 12th;

That all its components scrambled to enter the race in a partisan manner, in contrast to what happened in the two previous legislative terms.

The Justice and Development Front, headed by Sheikh Abdullah Jaballah, and the "National Reform", "Renaissance" and "National Construction" movements participate in this date - whose propaganda campaign has been launched since Thursday, May 20th. Society for Peace”, which is described as the largest Algerian opposition party.

In addition to the fact that the mass entry of Islamists into the parliamentary competition is a departure from the boycott circle that characterized their position in the presidential elections of December 12, 2019, and the referendum on the constitution on November 1, 2020, the most important thing that observers recorded is the Islamist movement’s abandonment of the approved blocs In the 2012 and 2017 elections to save their popular community from being scattered under the electoral system in force at the time.

The 2012 parliamentary elections witnessed the formation of the "Green Algeria" bloc, which included the "Reform and Ennahda" and "Society for Peace" movements, whereby it won 48 seats.

As for the maturity of 2017, two alliances emerged;

The first included the "Society for Peace" movement and the "Change Front", and won 34 seats, while the second wrapped around the "Union for Renaissance, Justice and Construction" list, which consists of the "Ennahda", "Justice and Development" and "National Building" movements. This list won 15 seats.

competition for voters

While all of these parties in the first parliamentary leg after the February 22, 2019 movement chose to bet on individual competition to attract voters, this comes at a time when the new Algerian electoral law - issued on March 12 last, by presidential order - still clings to the 5% threshold. of the voices expressed.

In the sense that the final counting process is carried out according to the electoral coefficient calculation for distributing the number of electoral district seats to the qualified parties, while the lists that obtained less than 5% of the votes are excluded in advance, so that the competition remains exclusively between the formations that crossed the threshold.

According to this system, the chances of parties and independents are diminishing in front of the blocs, and a single list can garner a limited number of votes for all the governorate’s seats, in front of dozens of other lists.

If we assume that there are 30 competing lists for 8 seats with 100,000 voiced votes, and 25 parties have 70,000 votes separated among them, i.e. 70% of the votes, but without any of them exceeding the 5% threshold, then all of those lists leave the race empty Handed, and the remaining five parties share a total of seats only with 30,000 votes, which always enhances the chances of the most popular coalitions in winning the majority with a lower electoral total than their dispersed competitors.

Therefore, many observers are surprised by the adventure of Islamic parties to disperse their supporters under this system, expressing fear that their parliamentary presence in the upcoming House of Representatives will decline.

Ahmed Al-Dan: The coalition will impose itself in forming the government (Al-Jazeera Net)

new vision

On the background of abandoning the experience of alliances, Ahmed El-Dan, Vice-President of the “National Building” Movement, stressed that “all the Algerian people are Muslim and love safe change and are keen on the homeland. And bear the consequences of the difficult next stage."

He said - in a statement to Al Jazeera Net - that the movement expanded its vision of alliances in the entitlement of next June 12, by involving others in the party's lists, as it "included approximately 80% of those outside its frameworks, and these represent different intellectual and political affiliations."

He added that the coalition will impose itself in the formation of the government emanating from Parliament, and "we are keen on that, because the transition in Algeria, the crisis of democratic transition and the difficult economic situation all require the efforts of everyone in integration and cooperation."

Nasser Hamaddoush said that the alliances did not have a significant positive impact in the previous entitlements (Al Jazeera Net)

a matter of discretion

For his part, the leader of the "Society for Peace" movement, Nasser Hamaddouche, stressed that alliances are a matter of discretion, according to the circumstances and results of each election, and that it had pros and cons on previous dates.

Hamaddoush told Al Jazeera that the political and legal environment, and the afflicted official, popular and partisan reality, do not allow the creation of success stories, and therefore "we did not see a significant positive impact, so the general assessment of it was that it was not repeated in these elections."

He expected, according to this given, that the chances would remain equal with the rest of the currents, and that the decision would be the popular will.

If the electoral alliance is now impossible for subjective and objective reasons - as Hamaddouche explains - this does not exempt from cooperation and coordination in files and axes of struggle, or other political stations and entitlements.

Islamic parties in Algeria fought previous electoral rights through alliances (Al-Jazeera Net)

electoral system

Regarding the observers’ perspective of the Islamists’ choice of competition, Boubacar Gimli, a professor of political sociology at the University of Constantine, said that the avoidance of alliance in the current legislation came due to the new electoral system, and one of its most important features is “giving preference to natural persons over organizations, as the single list will witness internal competition among its members.”

Jamili confirmed - in a statement to Al Jazeera Net - that failure is likely to exceed the 5% threshold in some departments, saying that the responsibility will be borne by the individuals nominated before the party, especially the lists that included unstructured names.

Gimli believes that the lack of alliance of the Islamic trend will be very useful in determining the true weight of each party, and drawing a more realistic political map, on the basis of which alliances can be made in the upcoming dates.

Post-traditional Islamic

On the other hand, Professor of Political Sociology at Annaba University, Abdel Salam Filali, believes that there is great ambiguity about the role of parties in general and Islamic ones in particular, and what the upcoming legislative elections will result in.

Filali noted a kind of change in the discourse and mobilization of the "national construction" and "peace society" movements, where "it can be said that we are in a post-Islamic traditional stage towards patriotism."

He explained - in a statement to Al Jazeera Net - that the Islamic trend has gone beyond the concept of a bloc, such as what happened in the 2017 elections, and is now heading towards imposing presence in the political scene beyond February 22, 2019.

Filali expected that this trend would not have any noticeable impact on the Islamists in the upcoming parliament, according to the peculiarities of the new electoral system.