AHC: Algeria in the Arab Spring

Teshuvah

Banned
I was always curious as to why Algeria was passed over in the Arab Spring. They're the only country in North Africa that's in more or less the same politically as they were in 2009.

So, a challenge. Can you get Algeria to go the same way as its North African neighbors? Will it be a peaceful transition (Tunisia), peaceful-ish but unstable (Egypt), or unstable (Libya)? Where will the Gaddafi family flee to if Algeria is democratic, assuming Gaddafi dies as per OTL?

What would have to be changed to make this happen?
 
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I was always curious as to why Algeria was passed over in the Arab Spring. They're the only country in North Africa that's in more or less the same politically as they were in 2009.

So, a challenge. Can you get Algeria to go the same way as its North African neighbors? Will it be a peaceful transition (Tunisia), peaceful-ish but unstable (Egypt), or unstable (Libya)? Where will the Gaddafi family free to if Algeria is democratic, assuming Gaddafi dies as per OTL?

What would have to be changed to make this happen?

2 things.

1 ) The Civil War in the 90s. When Islamists won the elections and the generals refused to accept it, the civil war broke out. In a way it mirrors a combination of Syria and Egypt. The Islamists won the elections, but were tossed out by the military immediately (elections voided). Then a civil war began and the Islamists started off as fairly moderate but quickly turned more and more radical and isolated large parts of the country. Many people alive still remember that Civil War, and were not happy to repeat it, especially after...

2 ) Algeria was governed under a series of "Emergency Laws" active from the Civil War until 2011. When the Arab Spring began people protested the Emergency Laws, and the government immediately caved and repealed all of them. Algeria is by no means a democracy(tm), but it is more-democratic than before the Arab Spring. With the memory of the civil war and especially after Syria degenerated into a civil war mirroring the Algerian one in many ways, nobody was really willing to push it further.

IMO you would either...

1 ) have the Algerian government totally overreact, start gunning people down in the streets en masse

2 ) have a POD during the Algerian Civil War or before it.
 

Archibald

Banned
The Civil War in the 90s. When Islamists won the elections and the generals refused to accept it, the civil war broke out. In a way it mirrors a combination of Syria and Egypt. The Islamists won the elections, but were tossed out by the military immediately (elections voided). Then a civil war began and the Islamists started off as fairly moderate but quickly turned more and more radical and isolated large parts of the country. Many people alive still remember that Civil War, and were not happy to repeat it, especially after...

Just one number: 50 000 to 150 000 people were killed in the Algerian civil war between 1992 and 1997.

...

Guess why there is still no civil unrest in Algeria, even with Bouteflika pathetic reelection.
 
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