For the past several weeks Algeria has been rocked by mass protests that harken to the Arab Spring. The protests were triggered by the decision of longtime ruler Abdelaziz Bouteflika to run for another term in office in elections scheduled for April.
Bouteflika came to power in 1999 as the architect of a peace accord that ended Algeria's brutal civil war that killed as many as 200,000. But Bouteflika is now 82 years old and has not been seen in public since suffering a stroke over five years ago. His decision to stand again for elections (or, probably more accurately, the decision of those around him to have him stand for elections) is being widely rejected by these protesters. Also fueling the protests is Algeria's languishing economy and a looming fiscal crisis, propelled by falling prices of oil and natural gas. On the line with me to discuss this unfolding situation in Algeria is Dr. Dalia Ghanem, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, which is where I caught with her. We kick off with the basic question on the minds of many Algerians: Where is President Bouteflika currently? We then discuss the politics of who is running the state while Bouteflika is possibly incapacitated. We then have a longer conversation about what is driving these protests and where these may be headed.