None has like the Algerian people been scarred by the flames of strife, wars of eradication and the repercussions of the Years of Fire. In this sense, Algeria was no exception when it got affected by the contagion of the Arab Spring, inasmuch as it was listening to its own cries of pain and contemplating the bitter experiences that made it lose faith in everything, apart from the ability to shape the features of stability that would protect the right to live and to be different without anyone losing their temper. By all standards and developments, the legislative elections that were held this month were unlike those that preceded them in the early 1990s. At the time, the military institution, maker of policies and presidents, chose to intervene to turn the victory of the Islamist movements into a defeat. And ever since then, it seemed that the country, which had become a field for experimentation, would never be the same again, whatever the outcome of the struggle for power. If there is an achievement to be recorded for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, as the first civilian president to lead the country in a consensual formula that did not eliminate the role of the military institution nor allowed it to hold alone a monopoly on decision-making, it is that he formed a vision closer to realism and hope, aimed at overcoming the blunders of the recent past. Nevertheless, reconciliation remains incomplete without critical analysis that would lay the responsibility on those who were implicated. Saving Algeria was the incentive and the founding principle, and nothing is as important as stability in a country that has suffered through the most extreme degrees of anarchy, collision and loss of life. That is why it is reasonable to believe that the recent elections, and those that preceded them on the path of normalizing democratic practices, whether complete or incomplete, were aimed primarily at opening a new chapter of difficult and intractable exercises. It would have been sufficient to attract the young generation of Algerians, who were born in a time of serial bombings and horrible forms of slaughter, to participate in taking steps to build trust, regardless of who would earn such trust, whether the Liberation Front (FLN – Front de Libération National), the coalition supporting the government, Islamist movements, tribal elements or others. Perhaps the mere fact that nearly two decades have gone by since these episodes of violence reflects one aspect of the difficulties that faces the Algerian experience, in view of the fact that the importance of the elections is rooted in the Algerian condition, rather than affected by the repercussions of the situation in the region and in the Arab World. Indeed, the modern history of Algeria seems to be a mixture of conflicts to reinforce identity and to entrench the feeling of belonging to an environment which colonial forces have desperately tried to keep it away from. The most crucial factor in the developments witnessed by Algeria as it took steps towards opening up to pluralism, free market economy and benefiting from intellectual and social transformations is the fact that they were painful, like a rapid shift from one state to another – where one clashes with or crashes into reality. This is why it is difficult to assess the recent legislative elections without taking into account the repercussions of such a shift, especially when one glances at a past of which some of the elements still peek through the cracks. And to the same extent, it is difficult to submit to the notion that Algeria will remain shielded from the winds of change. Did Algerians vote for stability, change or an attempt to bring the two together? In any case, the attraction of change is an integral part of any election. And certainly political parties or movements which put forward answers that are convincing, realistic and rational in the management of public affairs would tend to be closer to the will of voters. This happens in democracies in which electoral conduct becomes a right and a duty untainted by doubt. Yet in some experiences, people vote against the features of crises and the absence of stability, i.e. make of their right to express their will a means to deter those who would go too far in toying with crises. They could do this in order to give one side the upper hand over another, and they could choose the most harmful from among the worst. Yet most important is the fact that the extent of participation determines the features of the trends followed by public opinion, whether through increasing numbers heading to the ballot boxes or through abstention in protest and as punishment. People do not give their votes away in vain. And the more the results of the voting are consistent with their choices, the more grows their awareness of the importance of participation as a cultured feature that lays the foundations recognized in peaceful alternation of power. The opposite also happens, when results emerge that are different from aspirations. More important, however, is the fact that democratic problems are no longer being put forward within the framework of inhibitions – have they been imposed, or imported, or do they arise from the core of the people's particularities? The debate has ended with the recognition that there was no alternative to the people ruling themselves by themselves. And when it comes to Algeria in particular, the question remains: to what extent do the recent elections help to move forward on the path of consecrating this transformation? The matter is left to the will of Algerians, who, as it should not be overlooked, headed to the ballot boxes in search of stability. But who said that change was incompatible with stability?
