THE RISE OF THE FLN OLD GUARD AND FALL OF

C O N F I D E N T I A L ALGIERS 000618 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/02/2017 TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM AG SUBJECT: THE RISE OF THE FLN OLD GUARD AND FALL OF INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES Classified By: Ambassador Robert S. Ford; reasons 1.4 (b, d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: The old guard of the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN),based on a report from a well respected parliamentarian, overruled local FLN officials and stacked FLN party lists with their friends and associates in advance of the May 17 legislative elections. One result is that only a handful of women appear on the FLN ballot nationwide. The MP also reported that Parliament President Saadani stood up for the "modernist" MPs and the integrity of the FLN selection process, only to lose his own post and place on the FLN ballot. Over half of FLN activists, according to our source, will invalidate their ballots, not vote, or vote for another party in protest of the FLN leadership's actions. Interestingly, FLN leader Belkheddam has issued instructions to his rank and file not to meet with the American embassy. Meanwhile, both our discreet FLN source and a respected RND parliamentarian said there would be no independent candidates on the ballot in Algiers this year. Petitions for all such candidates were invalidated, they claim, and most independent candidates appearing on the ballot will hail from the sparsely populated south. The sense of manipulation behind the scenes on behalf of the political establishment reminds of Algeria in the 1970s and 1980s and contributes to the dearth of public interest in the elections. This perception in turn makes it less likely that the May 17 legislative elections will mark a step forward in the democratic evolution in Algeria. End Summary. THE FLN OLD GUARD ASSERTS ITSELF -------------- ¶2. (C) According to an FLN MP, Parliamentary President and FLN stalwart Amar Saadani stood up to the party old guard (largely FLN ministers who direct the party along with PM Belkheddam during the compilation of FLN party lists for the May 17 elections. In return, as punishment the old guard did not allow Saadani to run for re-election. Breaking with the rest of the FLN, which under instruction from Belkheddam has not met with us since February, MP Benour Sabah (strictly protect) agreed to meet PolEc Chief April 29. She said meeting with the Embassy entailed some personal risk, but informing us that democracy in Algeria was being hijacked was more important. Despite her very high qualifying scores in the FLN primary process, based on her work in parliament, she reported that Belkheddam and the old guard of the FLN had stricken her name from the FLN party list. Saadani, she said, had defended her and numerous other "modernist" MPs who were subjected to the same treatment. According to Sabah, Saadani had argued that it was not right to remove qualified and effective MPs from the ballot at the mere behest of certain senior members of the party. ¶3. (C) As a coordinator for the FLN primary process in two districts of Algiers, Sabah recounted how her problems began when she insisted on sharing with party members in her districts a directive from Belkheddam -- intended only for her and other coordinators -- that "clarified" certain aspects of the standing guidance for the primary selection process. The initial guidance on a point-based system had been intended to make the selection process of FLN candidates clear and transparent. The more narrowly circulated message from Belkheddam added a number of vague categories, under which the national party leadership could add points to a candidate's locally determined score. Sabah said "military service to the nation in its liberation from France" was one category where candidate scores could be bolstered. Over time, said Sabah, it became clear that points were added to the scores of the "dinosaurs" of the party, individuals who were friends of the FLN inner circle of leadership. Women, she said, did not make the cut. Despite months of FLN public assurances that it intended to field large numbers of women candidates, Sabah expressed outrage that the number of women on the FLN ballot for parliament nationwide amounted to fewer than ten. ¶4. (C) Sabah, an FLN parliamentary vice president, said dissension in the ranks of the FLN was far worse than press accounts of squabbling indicated. Sabah estimated that at least half of the FLN activists considered the FLN leadership's actions "treasonous" and would not as a result support the party's candidates in the elections. Many members were pushing for a boycott of the balloting, but Sabah said she had argued that it would be better to vote FLN but invalidate the ballot by tearing or marking a portion of it. Sabah explained that boycotting the ballot entirely was a bad idea because the government might commit fraud and cast ballots in the name of the boycotters. Spoiling the ballot, in her view, would prevent this. She also said a smaller group of FLN members was considering voting for the rival RND. However the disgruntled FLN membership responded, she said, there was much anger in the party at the blatant disregard for the established primary process and the inflation of scores for friends of the old guard. ¶5. (C) Sabah observed that the old guard was able to assert itself and turn the page back to an earlier era because Bouteflika was not in good health and could not stop it. Belkheddam she said, was not the driving force behind the belated changes to the scoring system for FLN candidates. It was evident to her that Belkheddam was under pressure from the old guard and was following their orders more than he was leading the party. She repeated what other sources have predicted: Belkheddam will replace Saadani or become president of the Senate after the elections. Sabah said the tampering with FLN primary process from on high reminded her of a time before Bouteflika when the "Pouvoir" (the ruling "power") divided up the votes by party before election day. She said if the FLN won the May elections, the result would clearly be fraudulent. Asked if she believed the "Pouvoir" was trying to engineer an RND victory, Sabah responded that if that were the case "the generals behind the curtain" would not have been so incompetent in carrying out the plan. She blamed instead the old guard's insularity and eagerness to put its members' interests -- and those of their friends -- ahead of the country as a whole. WHERE HAVE THE INDEPENDENTS GONE? -------------- ¶6. (C) Sabah said another indication that Algerian democracy has regressed was the disqualification in Algiers province (wilaya) of all petitions by independent candidates to appear on the ballot. As other embassy contacts have noted, Sabah said wilaya officials had the right to summon signers of petitions on behalf of independent candidates to appear in person at a particular place and time to verify the signer's identity. She said it had been years since the wilaya of Algiers exercised this right with the fervor it showed this year. Naturally, she noted, 100 percent turnout of the summoned signatories was impossible. As a result, officials in Algiers (as is their right by law) invalidated the entire petition when one or more individuals failed to appear. Sabah added that officials in a large number of wilayas similarly kept independent candidates off the ballot. Although she did not know how many wilayas approved petitions for independent candidates, she said they were few in number and generally located in the desert south of the country. Based on her conversations with political operatives and independent candidates, many of whom have a long history of serving in parliament, she was aware of no independent candidates who qualified in the most populous wilayas. Sabah observed that excluding independent candidates from the ballot was the best way to carve up the vote for a pre-ordained outcome. It was easier for the "Pouvoir," she opined, to cut deals with the parties on final vote tallies if the independent candidates were not part of the picture. ¶7. (C) In an April 30 meeting, RND MP Noureddine Benbraham told us the upcoming elections would bring change to Algeria. Benbraham, who heads the Algerian Muslim Scouts and has ties to key senior officials, including President Bouteflika, noted that many of the current cabinet ministers were running near the top of their party lists for parliament seats. This circumstance, he said, in and of itself suggested there would be a significant shuffling of portfolios following the elections. Given the internal divisions within the FLN, Benbraham recalled that the RND had scored much better than expected in the senatorial elections and did not face internal divisions. He was optimistic the RND would score better than the FLN at the polls in May. If it did, there would be a big shift in Algerian politics. As for his own future, Benbraham noted with no regret that the RND, despite his credentials which include the chairman of the parliamentary committee for issues of children and youth, chose not to include him on the party list this year. Asked if he might be asked to serve in the next government, Benbraham smiled and said the post of greatest interest to him was the ministry of youth and sports. Becoming more sober, Benbraham said it was regrettable that FLN MP Samia Moualfi, who he noted appeared in a MEPI-funded film, did not make it past her party's nomination process. He said he was with Moualfi in London when she received the call informing her of the FLN decision and that she was shocked and dismayed. In a final observation on the changes the elections would bring, Benbraham noted matter of factly that for the first time in years there were no independent candidates on the ballot in Algiers. He said this was also the case for the most populous provinces along the Mediterranean shore. The only independent candidates on the ballot of whom Benbraham was aware hailed from the less populated southern desert. ¶8. (C) COMMENT: Belkheddam's second-guessing of the local FLN primary process, as described by Sabah, smacks of the party's behavior in the days when it was the single party. Outgoing National Assembly President Saadani himself is hardly a model of reform and transparency, but he did represent change in the senior ranks of the strongest Algerian political party. Some Algerian wags, with an unparalleled ability to find conspiracies, view the isolation of Saadani and other agents of change in the FLN as a sign of a larger plan hatched by the generals behind the scenes to favor the RND in the May 17 elections. That is not evident to us. In any case, the lack of transparency in the FLN candidate selection process and the dearth of women candidates on the FLN lists are disappointing. The apparent systematic exclusion of independent candidates from the ballot is also cause for concern. Taken together, there is a concerted effort within the FLN leadership to reassert an old style of governance that harks back to the Algerian experience of the 1970s and 1980s. It does not boost public confidence that the May 17 elections will mark a step forward in Algeria's democratic evolution. FORD