The Supreme Guide

"Of all the people in the world," orated Algerian Premier Ahmed ben Bella to his fanatically cheering audience, "the Algerians are the last ones who will accept dictatorship." Then Ben Bella proceeded to make himself the one-man ruler of a one-party state.

Before 3,500 delegates of his National Liberation Front packed into Algiers' Majestic theater last week, Ben Bella accepted nomination by acclamation for President--a new title which will supersede that of Premier and hand Ben Bella even greater power.

Only a Flag. Actually, it all only sealed what had been fact for a year: the emergence of Ben Bella, the 43-year-old son of a peasant, as strongman of the Algerian revolution. Since independence in 1962, Ben Bella has elbowed out virtually all his fellow "historic chiefs" of the long guerrilla war against France. Earlier this year his staff, with help from Yugoslavian* and French advisers, drew up Algeria's first constitution. Approved by the Ben Bella-controlled Assembly last month, the country's Magna Carta pronounced the Ben Bella-controlled Front to be the nation's supreme "guide"--and its only legal political party.

The Front will nominate candidates for the National Assembly and President, present them to voters in single-list, yes-no "elections." Installing Ben Bella's brand of "socialism," the constitution calls for "creation of a national economy directed by the workers." It guarantees freedom of speech, press and assembly--but only if it does not injure the one-party system or the "socialist aspirations of the people."

Fortnight ago, the government submitted the constitution to a national referendum, announced a landslide (98%) majority for approval. But in the Kabylia mountains east of Algiers, fiercely independent Berbers staged a surprisingly effective boycott. Disappointed because Ben Bella has done little for their war-shattered region, and egged on by Marxist sympathizing Deputy Hussein Ait-Ahmed, who recently broke with Ben Bella, more than 50% of the half-million Kabylia voters stayed away from the polls. Said one Berber ex-guerrilla: "Independence? All we have got from it is the national flag."

Modest Messiah. Despite such latent opposition, Ben Bella is counting on the turbaned peasant masses, along with the popular national army of enigmatic No. 2 man, Colonel Houari Boumedienne, to keep him in power. Ben Bella's immediate problem is reviving the economy, and last week, on the eve of the presidential vote, he announced a timely boost from the Soviet Union--a $100 million loan to Algeria. Although disbursement details had yet to be worked out on paper, Russia thus becomes Ben Bella's second most important helper after France, which has promised up to $700 million.

Ben Bella seems hurt that anyone could consider him power-mad. "We are making a real revolution that seeks to transform a whole society," he told last week's convention, pointing out truthfully that his regime has treated its few political prisoners mildly, and that "there has not been a single execution." Anyway, insists Ben Bella, he is not interested in creating a cult of personality. "Why," he protested, "I am the world's only head of government who does not have an official photograph."

* Recently, Ben Bella told the New Republic's Jean Daniel: "To me, Castro is a brother, Nasser is a teacher, but Tito is an example."

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