| Since 2013, the politically marginal but economically crucial oil-producing areas of the Algerian south have experienced successive waves of unrest over what may appear local economic, environmental and communal issues. Taken together, however, a pattern emerges: resentment is growing against central authorities in a part of the country long peripheral to its politics. Thus far, authorities have managed this burgeoning discontent with a stick-and-carrot policy that has kept a tenuous peace but not addressed underlying issues. Ahead of an uncertain presidential succession and given the painful consequences of low oil prices, Algeria should go beyond treating the symptoms to address governance shortcomings and include its peripheral populations in political decision-making. It should do so now, when the challenges are still amply manageable, rather than allow them to fester and bleed dangerously into the coming political transition. |
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