Algerian leaders
Wage and welfare cuts and dismantling of state sector
=FLN Congress
AFTER three days of debate. 5,000 delegates at the Special Congress of Liberation Front (FLN) Algeria's only party December 26 overwhelmingly approved a new charter for the country. This was by no means an irrelevant exercise in textual hairsplitting, but a fundamental rewriting of the source of the country's policies and laws."
Before the Congress even brought down the curtain, the press agency Algerian Press Service (APS) issued a lengthy statement dispelling any doubt on the credentials of the delegates - the vast majority personally handpicked by Benjedid Chadli, Secretary-General of the party -and giving weight and legitimacy to the new Charter which will pave the way for changes in the political hierarchy and the economic options: text, a precise and which will modify Algeria, Its people, its party and its state.
No one would doubt that the text was clear: but what was also clear were the manceuvres of the bureaucracy to steamroller through fundamental changes. Until the Congress, it was generally surmised that the final version of the Charter would embody the synthesis of a countrywide "exemplary debate". For the first time revealed that the text was in its final shape long before the debate started: "The draft presented to Congress was prepared by the political leaderhsip at the beginning of 1985 and debated by 4 million citizens. " In reality the general line of the new policies has already begun to be implemented for the last few years. The exercise was an unmistakeable sham to legitimise swing towards
Thatcherism the National
-
- on
"supreme president substantial
"a clear to rubberstamp gress
Charter.
rich document
So in fact the
Algerian the state labels masses."
These
(General
Union democratic
APS
(National Union of Algerian Women).
is than more state bureaucracy.
the reorientation
President Chodit's new pragmatism appeals to Washington the lurch to the right by President
Chadli who orchestrated in minute detail the scope and extent of the debate, culminating in a special Conthe new
"exemplary democratic debate" in the future of
"revolution"
quietly hostile bypassed the vast majority of the
Algerian masses and simply involved the FLN and its front organisations
"democratic"
labels the organisations of the
"organisations place, the
UGTA the are of
Algerian workers), the UNJA (National Union of Algerian Youth) and the UNFAA
"enemies of
Even within these closed circles, it would be naive to presume that the discussions were without problems. It that they certain reflected the profound impasse of the
The inevitable
Congress clashes were led by old guard FLN militants who opposed tooth and nail towards new
Socialist Viewpoint No. 10 February 1985 p23
By JACK GOLDBERG economic choices. They posed as unrelenting defenders of the old political order born out of the Revolution in the '60s and by former president Boumedienne. Their opposition was symbolised with a single slogan: "No to Economic Liberalisation"
Anticipating a rearguard action by factions, president Chadli kicked off the debate inside the FLN as early as mid-August. First this allowed him to proclaim that a really debate was taking strengthening the legitimacy of any decision taken by Congress. Secondly, his unshakeable control of the Party's apparatus and the state's mass media gave him the added advantage to expose all dissenters as the Revolution" and manipulate public opinion to his advantage. Further it allowed him to gauge the number of his opponents and prepare more adequately for the
(timing, choice of delegates, etc.). So far from being a forum where he arqued with and convinced his opponents of the correct-
EFLN Congress
ness of the new orientation, president Chadli used the pre-Congress discussion as a sounding-off exercise to disorientate his opponents and pave the way for his own resounding victory at Congress.
Nevertheless the crisis of the bureaucracy was open and visible. The clashes, sometimes vitriolic, found expression in the public press. The ministerished in liMousiahid Messaoudi Zitount, published in (FLN daily paper) two articles calling for a liberalisation of the economy, making a case for free market forces, advocating a salary freeze and openly welcoming private capital from imperialist countries.
Around the same period, Algerie Actualité, a national weekly. nounced the welfare state and condemned the FLN as a "closed apparatus which stifled any free expression and perpetuated a monolithism that negates individual value. promotes intellectual paucity and cliquism. * Revolution Africaine (official organ of the FLN) reacted Immediately. denouncing the "theses of bourgeois reaction, a project sponreminded all counter terrutionaries sored of the might of its armed wing, the
Popular National Army.
ft became quickly obvious that within the state bureaucracy two tendencies were shaping up: one favouring a rapid privatisation of the economy, a bigger share for the national bourgeoisie and a rapprochement with imperialism. The other ciinging to the "socialist ideals" inherited from former President
Boumedienne.
The crisis of the bureaucracy became more acute at a time when the state of the economy was worsening. The standard of living of workers was steadily being eroded by infla tion and a sudden rise of basic commodity prices.
Most Importantly, legislation, the "statut général du travail" (General Labour statutes), introduced by Boumedienne in 1978 started being widely implemented in all state institutions. Its general aim was to restructure jobs in state-owned enterprises and rationalise their. com parable values. In real terms, it was set to cut wages by around 25% as well as increasing national insurance contributions. Workers only resisted the implementation of the new labour legislation but demanded large wage increases which the state bureaucracy cannot even start to
As well as labour unrest, a wave of civil disorder is engulfing the coun try. Muslim fundamentalists started armed rebellion repressed in blood by the army. Armed clashes just outside Algiers ended with twen ty deaths. The main ringleader Bouali is still on the run, despite a vast police operation - which indicates the existence of sympathies among
Former President Ben Bella (left) and Boumedienne in 1963 the local population as well as connivance with sections of the ruling
During the same period.
demonstrations demanding the freeing of all political prisoners reached a peak when the whole Kabyle population struck on November 10th after the trial and emprisonment of the popular political sInger Ait Margallet. The Government has shown a staunch determination not to concede an inch.
Opponents, whether human rights
Kabyle cultural crushed. While in the past opponents were systematically rounded up and Imprisoned without trial for several years until released as a "gesture of good will", the government appears on its human rights record and has devised new its opponents. Twenty-three Algerian League of Human Rights were tried for conspiracy against the state, distribution of leaflets and 1legal assembly. Despite the collapse of the prosecution case, based on flimsy evidence, they were still con sentences ranging between 6 months and 3 years.
Almost simultaneousiy. of former president Ben Bella - the first Algerian president, deposed in a coup by Boumedienne - received up to 20 years in gaol for plotting armed revolt. These show trials remained a taxing test for a state bureaucracy already isolated and whose power base is increasingly shrinking.
What is at stake for the government Is how to adapt to the necessities of the economic crisis without the risk of opening a more violent crisis that the state has no immediate means to con-
La section of the bureaucracy, the only way to salvage situation is to liberalise the - a position in itself contradictory to the maintenance of a one party system for the most or thodox wing - wholeheartedly sup he dry devani Carde Social
Parti d'Avant Garde
(PAGS) - what is most important is Socialist Viewpoint No. 10 February 1985p24
I to maintain the "gain of the Revolution, the inheritance of Boumedienne" embodied in the vast state sector and the one-party system. Only then could they avoid or, at worst, postpone any confrontation with the
Fears that a spiralling down of oil prices will accelerate the crisis of the have thrown bureaucracy into permanent turmoil in isolation from masses. Faced with increased working class and youth militancy, they cannot fall back any more on the op tion of the FLN front organisations -state trade unions, youth section and women's section - which for many years operated as transmission belts under the control of the FLN.
These organisations remain empty hulks devoid of any significance since the Stalinists who used to run them have been pushed aside by President Chadii: what is left is on the one hand workers and youth yet organised in independent structure - steadily affected by the capable of expressing their anger in an open conflict with the state: and on the other hand a beleaguered state bickering about what
It is In this context that the new Charter is seen as a way out. Pesident Chadli's line has strongly emerged as the new orientation. On the one hand it maintains the status quo on the political terrain, while on the other it has started - without conceding the demands for an immediate liberalisation of the economy - to tilt slowly away from the "socialist ideals"
devised and theorised by former president Boumedienne.
While still proclaiming his commitment to the past and to Algeria's fundamental options such as "socialism", state control and one-party system.
President Chadi! has now paved the way for a new economic system, one in which sloganising about socialism will sound increasingly hollow and unconvincing: the breakdown of state
Industries and collective farms; an increased share of the economy open to private capital; the linking of wages to pare state. A mighty jump from and an end to the state capitalism to neo-Keynesianism. welfare state.
peppered with concepts such as "self reliance directly poached from the vocabulary of Thatcherism.
"pragmatic" Persident Chadli, the sheet of Congress will reclothes: there is less material in them than they like to see. The economic reorientation will necessitate sooner or later a reshuffling of the different
And it is more than certain that this will open a more naked crisis where the weight of the Algerian working class and youth would this time be of