ALI BENFLIS: BOUTEFLIKA RIVAL STAYING OUT OF SIGHT

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 ALGIERS 000028 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/07/2028 TAGS: PGOV PINR AG SUBJECT: ALI BENFLIS: BOUTEFLIKA RIVAL STAYING OUT OF SIGHT REF: 07 ALGIERS 1658 Classified By: Ambassador Robert S. Ford; reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (S) SUMMARY: Ali Benflis, the main challenger to President Bouteflika in the 2004 presidential election, told us that that the Algerian government is gradually throttling democracy and largely failing to address Algeria's other problems. He claimed that changes back and forth on policy issues like amnesties for Islamists and liberalization of the hydrocarbons sectors makes Algeria more unstable when the country needs, above all, more stability. Pointing to the Algerian public's economic woes and widespread dissatisfaction among Algerian young people, Benflis ridiculed the idea of spontaneous public support for a third Bouteflika term. However, Benflis is keeping his views very private; unlike other notable Bouteflika opponents, Benflis stays out of the media and off the public stage. An insider himself to the same system he criticizes in private, he is keeping his copybook clean in case the generals and their civilian acolytes approach him again for the top job, as some of them did in 2004. END SUMMARY. INTRODUCTION -------------- ¶1. (S) Until less than four years ago, former Prime Minister Ali Benflis was President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's trusted confidant and right hand man. Once head of the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) and the party's original choice for president in 2004, he is now Bouteflika's nemesis, living in the shadows, cast aside by the FLN camp loyal to Prime Minister Belkhadem and President Bouteflika. After the generals who control the security services shifted their support to then-independent presidential candidate Bouteflika in 2004, Benflis became toxic to Bouteflika's inner circle. A deep rift emerged between the Benflis and Belkhadem/Bouteflika camps, one that threatened the survival and status of the party. As we have reported in reftel, the rift continues to this day - Benflis' supporters remain numerous within the FLN, although public use of Benflis' name is sensitive if not actively discouraged. Benflis, considered a possible candidate in the 2009 presidential elections, is a bold red line for Bouteflika, and the Algerians with good contacts at the Presidency have warned the Ambassador and his European counterparts that meeting with Benflis would seriously annoy Bouteflika personally. Benflis told Pol/Econ chief on January 5 that he now chooses to remain largely silent so as not to be seen as "legitimizing the Bouteflika government's democratic credentials by playing the role of yet another co-opted opposition." To Bouteflika, Ali Benflis is a dormant force capable of rallying a significant threat to his leadership. BENFLIS: CONTROLLED OPPOSITION "BORN WITH A MUSTACHE" -------------- -------------- ¶3. (S) We met with Ali Benflis at his residence on January 5, and were treated to a rare tour d'horizon of his often scathing criticisms of a regime he says is closing itself down and becoming less democratic. Benflis called the current regime a "pouvoir en place" (entrenched power) whose efforts to deepen its grip on power have presented a wall to reform and true democracy. Freedoms, he said, are gradually decreasing to the point that the Pouvoir "is even choosing its opposition." Benflis described what he called a tradition of "paper opposition" parties that have emerged through agreement with the FLN over the years as part of an effort to present the appearance of pluralism and open debate. According to Benflis, the latest of these is the Algerian National Front (FNA),led by Moussa Touati, which produced a surprising third-place overall finish in the November 29 local elections. Benflis referred to an expression several of our contacts have used to refer to the FNA and even to the National Democratic Rally (RND),an FLN ruling coalition partner founded in 1997, as "born with a mustache." Benflis explained that he has chosen to decline opportunities to speak out against Bouteflika, because "I do not want to be yet another co-opted opposition figure." WEAKENED INSTITUTIONS, STRONG INDIVIDUALS -------------- ALGIERS 00000028 002 OF 003 ¶4. (S) Benflis, who served as Minister of Justice in the late 1990s, spoke at length about justice and the rule of law when referring to Algerian government institutions he alleged were slowly weakening. Benflis stated that an independent judiciary is essential for Algeria's future, but said that today, "the justice system is used by the state to settle individual accounts and protect interests, not to serve the citizens." He cited the example of the high-profile Khalifa bank scandal, wondering that "perhaps in fifteen years we will know what really happened." In the Khalifa case, Benflis charged that it was impossible for justice to be done when the Minister of Justice himself was personally involved in the form of "a significant loan from that bank." He described a Parliament that "has become merely a tape recorder," with no power to influence change. Taking Algeria's hydrocarbons law as an example, he said that the members of parliament who applauded when it was introduced in 2005 were the same who applauded when it was withdrawn in ¶2006. "Not a single MP had the courage to stand up and disagree," Benflis said. He pointed to a habit of the Bouteflika government with issues such as national reconciliation and the Grand Mosque project of floating initiatives in the press or in parliament simply to test the waters, only to withdraw them. "Changing and withdrawing laws at the whims of the presidency is a sign of instability," Benflis said, "and what Algeria needs more than anything is stability." POVERTY: AGRICULTURE AND LAND REFORM ARE KEY -------------- ¶5. (S) Despite Central Bank coffers overflowing with hydrocarbon revenue, Benflis noted that poverty is "more than rampant" in Algeria. Corruption, he said, has reached very high levels and is serving to block real solutions to lift Algerians out of poverty and stimulate the development of small businesses and foreign investment. According to Benflis, land reform and agricultural development are central to providing solutions for unemployment and poverty. He pointed to neighboring Tunisia's relative success in transforming former swampland into the Berges du Lac development, filled with residential and commercial facilities built largely through Saudi Arabian investment. "It takes political courage," Benflis said, "to get on television and announce that parcels of land will be given directly and with special conditions to investors and private owners, with payback in the form of jobs, housing and efficient agricultural use of the land." Transparency is also a key to this process, Benflis observed, but he said that thus far, the Algerian privatization process had been "a failure," taking place in opaque and arbitrary spurts connected to special interests within Le Pouvoir and those close to Bouteflika. A STILL-DIVIDED FLN -------------- ¶6. (S) Consistent with what we have reported in reftel, Benflis told us that the FLN consists of two rival camps, unequal in size and influence. "Actually, there are two FLNs," he said. The first is the "official FLN," which makes up at most 15-20 percent of the party. This, he explained, is the circle of individuals who drive the party agenda and appear on television. So far, he said, the official FLN has proven it is more than capable of implementing its agenda regardless of whether or not the second FLN - the "popular FLN" - agrees. The "official FLN," under the leadership of Prime Minister Belkhadem, consists of a disproportionate number of individuals hailing from Western Algeria, while Benflis (who comes from Eastern Algeria) and his supporters in the popular FLN have been reduced to second-class citizens within the party. The "official FLN," Benflis explained, has been charged with the mission of engineering a third term for Bouteflika, and simply maintaining its hold on power for the benefit of Bouteflika and those close to him. BOUTEFLIKA "SETTING THE HOUSE ON FIRE" -------------- ¶7. (S) To ask for a third mandate, Benflis said, "is nonsense" when economic reforms have not occurred, Algerian youth are desperate, terrorists are "still running around in ALGIERS 00000028 003 OF 003 the hills," civil liberties are diminishing, the educational system is in crisis and out of touch with the job market and the judiciary lacks independence. "If the country was going in the right direction," Benflis asserted, "people would not have a problem with this. They would spontaneously ask for the third mandate without the need to have their wishes simulated by the government." He added that the government was indecisive and had "no idea" what to do about national reconciliation, while in his view, "criminals must always be judged." Favoring a tougher approach, Benflis said that "someone who has committed a massacre cannot be allowed back into society so easily." Benflis concluded that because he wanted the best for Algeria, he could not help someone "who is setting the house on fire. You have to protect the house you live in and stop him from burning it down, whether he intends to or not." COMMENT -------------- ¶8. (S) It is important to remember that Benflis himself rose to prominence as a loyal member of the system, and his eastern Algerian roots likely helped in the 1990s when many in the Army and the civilian leadership came from that part of Algeria. (We should never underestimate how important this regionalism is in modern Algerian politics.) Benflis' 2004 presidential aspirations came largely after then chief of staff Lamari and retired Defense Minister Nezzar urged him to run against Bouteflika whose national reconciliation policies they didn't much like. The story we hear most often from well-informed sources is that military intelligence chief General Mediene at the last minute backed Bouteflika, Lamari saw which way the wind was blowing and changed sides too. (It didn't save Lamari - Bouteflika in 2005 promoted him and then promptly retired him.) ¶9. (C) Benflis as Justice Minister and Prime Minister could have instigated dramatic reforms in areas he says he cares about, like judicial independence and privatization. Instead, he changed little. His very low profile opposition to Bouteflika and the present political system also smacks of opportunism. Other opponents, like fellow ex-Prime Minister and FLNer Mouloud Hamrouche, have started speaking out vociferously against Bouteflika and the political system more generally. Hamrouche is earning plaudits from the small, secular intellectual elite who want dramatic reforms, but many of our well-informed political contacts claim he is alienating the top generals and their acolytes. Benflis, by contrast, appears to be keeping his copybook clean with those officials in case they tap him again one day. FORD