The deep divisions between two of Algeria's major institutions – the presidential court and the powerful intelligence service known as the Department of Research and Security (DRS) – have been exposed by president Abdelaziz Bouteflika's recent decision to run for a fourth term.
The presidential circle is a conglomerate of interest groups engaged in a battle to maintain their privileged existence and they are determined to deliver a fourth term to Mr Bouteflika. The presidential election is scheduled for April 17.
After the president suffered a mini-stroke last year and spent several months convalescing in France, this clan has become concerned that if Mr Bouteflika does not stay in office it would expose them to criticism and, in extreme cases, to charges of corruption. To counter those fears, they have begun to strike out before they are struck themselves.
To this end, Amar Saadani, the secretary general of the governing party, the National Liberation Front, has recently criticised Gen Mohamed Mediene (also known as Toufik), the country’s intelligence chief.
Gen Toufik has headed the DRS since 1992, and he has never previously been so publicly challenged.
Mr Saadani drew a picture of a sprawling and pernicious institution whose “agents are everywhere: in city councils, the presidency, judicial system, media, and political parties. He claimed the DRS “is overstepping its prerogatives,” and called on Gen Toufik to end his decades “of meddling in politics”.
Mr Saadani himself is no stranger to criticism and has had a topsy-turvy career in the Union of the Algerian Workers (aka UGTA), and the National Liberation Front.
He is viewed by his critics as a powerful symbol of the failures of the Bouteflika era, a 15-year period when the country is judged by opponents to have lost its bearings.
Mr Saadani is also labelled as an apparatchik, an unquestioning loyalist. Serious allegations involving the misappropriation of government funds have also refused to go away.
On the other side of the dispute, Hichem Aboud, a former DRS officer turned essayist and journalist, has accused the president’s brother and personal adviser, Said Bouteflika, of embezzlement and immoral personal activities.
And the retired Gen Hocine Benhadid has recently hinted in an interview that the nation’s army, an equally powerful institution, might turn against the current president’s hand-picked chief of staff.
He also called for the president to retire from public life with dignity. Such pronouncements would once have been unthinkable, but these statements reveal that the status quo that has prevailed for decades is now coming to an acrimonious end.
Ever since declaring independence from France in 1962, Algeria has appeared to operate under some kind of “gentlemen’s agreement” between the politicians and the security services.
But, with the precise state of Mr Bouteflika’s health in question, a dirty and destructive war looms as that gentlemen’s agreement unravels.
Meanwhile, average Algerians remain perplexed. They are appalled by the dirty laundry both sides seem determined to air. They are also concerned about what this says about the republic’s inner workings.
Many Algerians have, to date, ignored Mr Saadani’s rambling accusations and refuse to believe that he exerts any influence over the country or its destiny.
Nevertheless, Mr Saadani’s allegations are so direct and so unrelenting that many observers think that they bode ill for the future.
This lack of consensus and serious dissent may well see the country tumble into a more aggressive stand-off between the two factions – and the only losers in such a dispute would be the Algerian people.
The two sides should realise that their disagreement could eventually destabilise the whole country.
Dr Abdelkader Cheref is a professor at the State University of New York at Potsdam
