The Algerian Hirak
Abdelaziz Bouteflika had been president since 1999 and had not appeared in public since a stroke in 2013. In February 2019 his candidacy for a fifth term was announced; the response was the largest demonstrations since independence, held every Friday and notable for their discipline — protesters cleaned the streets afterwards, and the movement's insistence on non-violence was explicit and rooted in memory of the civil war of the 1990s, in which some two hundred thousand died. The army withdrew its support and Bouteflika resigned on 2 April. The protesters continued, because their target was 'le pouvoir' — the opaque network of military, security and business interests that had selected presidents since independence — rather than any individual. The slogan became 'Yetnahaw ga3', they should all go. Marches continued weekly for over a year and boycotted the December 2019 election, in which Abdelmadjid Tebboune, a former Bouteflika prime minister, won on a turnout officially below forty per cent. The movement was suspended by the Covid pandemic in March 2020, and when it attempted to resume in 2021 the authorities prosecuted organisers and journalists and banned unauthorised gatherings.
- Year: 2019 CE
- Category: Political
