Algeria: An Alarming No Vote

By Jill Smolowe

Given the warning flares that went up as far back as June 1990, when the Islamic Salvation Front coasted to easy victory in Algeria's municipal races, expectations were high that fundamentalists would score well in the country's first free parliamentary election. Even so, shock waves rattled both the Arab and Western worlds last week, when Islamists walked away with almost half the national vote, despite competition from 40 other political parties. In the first round of balloting, fundamentalists secured 188 of 206 seats and were poised to win enough of the 224 remaining seats in a runoff election on Jan. 16 to obtain a sizable parliamentary majority. Meanwhile, the National Liberation Front, which has ruled Algeria with an autocratic hand since independence in 1962, emerged with a humiliating 15 seats.

The scope of the fundamentalist mandate immediately gave rise to doomsday visions of an Algeria cloaked in black robes and veils, a Koran clutched in one hand, the other the clenched fist of religious fanaticism. But there was actually little to suggest that the north African country was about to return to the Middle Ages any time soon. Cool-headed analysts mostly regarded the vote as less an embrace of fundamentalism than a sharp renunciation of the socialist National Liberation Front, which has run the country's economy into the ground through corruption, mismanagement, nepotism and sloth.

Still, the Islamists' public embrace of Koranic law raised fears that the chilling penal law, known as Shari'a, might be enforced, giving rise to such practices as flagellations, stonings and limb amputations. Moreover, Islamic leaders have repeatedly stated that mothers should attend to their children, and therefore should not hold a job outside the home. The fundamentalists also champion segregation of the sexes in both the workplace and schools.

If all of this sounds eerily like Iran, a mix of historical, political and cultural factors set Algeria's experience apart. Unlike the popular uprising that swept the Shah from power in 1979, Algeria's fundamentalists are ascending to legislative power by the say-so of voters who have given indications that they are as little interested in the tyranny of Islamists as they are in the tyranny of corrupt socialists.

Moreover, Algeria's political convulsion is less like Iran's than like Jordan's: in 1989 King Hussein, similarly beset by a disintegrating economy, permitted open parliamentary elections that resulted in the seating of a large fundamentalist block. Nonetheless, Jordan's ties to the West and its moderate course remain largely intact.

In Algeria last week, the Islamic tide met with strong resistance. In the capital, 300,000 people turned out shouting, "No to fundamentalism!" Apparently emboldened by the protests, the government announced that it was investigating first-round irregularities in 145 contests that could deprive the Islamic Front of many of its seats.

Unless the fundamentalists win big next week, they will not enjoy a free hand in any case. President Chadli Bendjedid not only controls the army and police force but also wields the constitutional authority to dissolve parliament and declare a state of emergency. Should the fundamentalists achieve a two-thirds majority, they will have enough votes to force constitutional changes and override presidential vetoes. Jean Leca, a leading French expert on Algeria, warns that in such an event, strict social control and dictatorship are likely to follow. Other analysts predict that the military, which is committed to a modernizing, secular state, will thwart such ambitions.

A religious dictatorship would not sit well even among Algeria's fundamentalists, mostly Sunnis who do not exalt clerics to the same degree that Iran's Shi'ites do today. "The concept of theocracy is not something which has roots in Sunni society," says Professor Mary-Jane Deeb of American University's School of International Service in Washington. Algeria's former colonial ties to France also give the country a Western complexion that cannot be easily erased. Most Algerians speak French, many are exposed to European culture through French television and have relatives among their millions of compatriots now living in Europe.

All of this does little to quell the unease of Arab, African and European onlookers. Neighboring Tunisia and Morocco feel particularly threatened by the Islamic vote. Across the Mediterranean, Spain, Italy and France are girding for waves of fleeing Algerians to wash up on their shores. And throughout the Arab world, there are fears that such fundamentalist successes will inspire Islamic radicals at home.

Nevertheless, Algeria's future course will hinge more on the economy's performance than the zeal of the newly seated fundamentalists. In 1991 inflation ran at a rate of 100%, and almost a quarter of the labor force is now out of work. Oil and gas revenues will decline if the fundamentalists scare off Algeria's European clients. Bendjedid recently implemented financial reforms aimed at wooing foreign funds. If democracy continues to flower, investment will be forthcoming, opening up new jobs and industries. But if daily life does not improve for the country's 26 million residents, Algerians may mistake fundamentalism for a panacea and sign on to a far vaguer -- but undoubtedly more radical -- agenda.

With reporting by J.F.O. McAllister/Washington and Farah Nayeri/Paris