ABSTRACT
When Algeria was struck by a terrible earthquake in May 2003, newspaper headlines such as ‘Heureusement il y a l’armée!‘ were widespread.1 Several months later, voices in the Algerian press openly asked the army to intervene in politics when conflicts between President Bouteflika and his prime rival, Ali Benflis, in the upcoming elections threatened to turn violent.2 Even if one took into consideration that much of the Algerian private press had financial backing and other support from army elites, the praising of the army by non-elites and elites alike and the wish for it to pursue an active role in politics reflected two things: first, the population’s low confidence in civil and political state institutions; and second, the state of a state in which one institution, the Armée Nationale Populaire (ANP), has been the backbone of the political system for four decades.
