Analysis: Is a new Arab Spring on the way?
By Ishaan Tharoor Ishaan Tharoor Reporter covering foreign affairs, geopolitics and history Email Bio Follow March 4 at 12:59 AM Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions to know? Sign up for the Today’s WorldView newsletter.
Meanwhile, in Algeria, protests across the country swelled over the past two weeks, calling for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to abandon his run for a fifth term in April’s elections. Bouteflika turned 82 over the weekend and has been in power since 1999. He suffered a stroke in 2013 that left him using a wheelchair, and he has not spoken publicly in seven years.
The moment Algerian and Sudanese protesters bumped into each other in London today pic.twitter.com/cmPue5rKz8 In both Algeria and Sudan, the governments have long and brutal legacies of repression. “Human rights groups say more than 50 people have been killed by [Sudanese] security forces since the protests began in mid-December,” my colleagues reported from Khartoum. “Thousands more — including prominent opposition figures, lawyers, doctors and journalists — have been held indefinitely in a constellation of detention centers run by Sudan’s intelligence service.
But no matter these regimes’ very real abilities to quash dissent, their survival no longer seems a fait accompli. “As economic and demographic challenges mount, and political institutions have been stripped of legitimacy, regimes that are already exercising maximal repression have few options for escalation,” wrote Lynch.
On Sunday, it seemed the popular pressure in Algeria had won protesters a kind of victory. In a letter read by his campaign manager, Bouteflika announced that he was, indeed, running for a fifth term — one he is likely to win, given Algeria’s less-than-democratic political system. But he indicated he would use his mandate to lead a “national dialogue” that would result in new elections next year, when he will no longer participate.
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