| After
more than a century of rule by France, Algerians fought through
much of the 1950s to achieve independence in 1962. Algeria's
primary political party, the National Liberation Front (FLN),
was established in 1954 as part of the struggle for independence
and has since largely dominated politics. The Government of
Algeria in 1988 instituted a multi-party system in response
to public unrest, but the surprising first round success of
the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) in the December 1991 legislative
elections led the Algerian army to intervene and postpone
the second round of elections to prevent what the secular
elite feared would be an extremist-led government from assuming
power. The army began a crackdown on the FIS that spurred
FIS supporters to begin attacking government targets. Fighting
escalated into an insurgency, which saw intense violence from
1992-98, resulting in over 100,000 deaths – many attributed
to indiscriminate massacres of villagers by extremists. The
government gained the upper hand by the late-1990s, and FIS's
armed wing, the Islamic Salvation Army, disbanded in January
2000.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika, with the backing of the military, won
the presidency in 1999 in an election that was boycotted by
several candidates protesting alleged fraud, and won subsequent
elections in 2004, 2009, and 2014. The government in 2011 introduced
some political reforms in response to the Arab Spring, including
lifting the 19-year-old state of emergency restrictions and
increasing women's quotas for elected assemblies, while also
increasing subsidies to the populace. Since 2014, Algeria’s
reliance on hydrocarbon revenues to fund the government and
finance the large subsidies for the population has fallen under
stress because of declining oil prices. Protests broke out across
the country in late February 2019 against President Bouteflika's
decision to seek a fifth term. Bouteflika resigned on 2 April
2019, and the speaker of the upper house of parliament, Abdelkader
Bensalah, became interim head of state on 9 April. Bensalah
remained in office beyond the 90-day constitutional limit until
Algerians elected former Prime Minister Abdelmadjid Tebboune
as the country's new president in December 2019.
Location:
Northern Africa, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between
Morocco and Tunisia.
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