Algeria

F

Commerce and Trade

The principal Algerian exports are natural gas and petroleum. In addition to hydrocarbons the country exports phosphates, iron ore, hides, cork, wine, tobacco, and fruits and vegetables. Major imports are foods, consumer goods, and machinery. Algeria’s major trading partners are the European Union and the United States. Algeria’s trade volume and balance depend heavily on petroleum prices.

G

Transportation

Algeria’s rail and road systems mainly serve the northern third of the country. Railroad lines run to the northern edge of the Sahara, and roads link the Sahara oil fields to the coast. Algeria’s segment of a trans-Saharan highway, extending from the Mediterranean coast past Tamanrasset, an oasis in the Sahara, to the Niger border, was completed in 1985. The state-owned Air Algérie and the privately owned Khalifa Airways provide domestic and international air service. The country’s principal ports are Algiers, Oran, and Annaba.

H

Communications

Numerous daily and weekly newspapers are published in French, Arabic, or both languages. Algeria’s press is relatively free, but the government does practice censorship and occasionally seizes newspapers outright. Despite government monitoring and interference, the print and broadcast media in general is freer than it was during the authoritarian decades immediately after independence. The state operated the nation’s telecommunications system and national television station until the year 2000, when legislation gave the government only a supervisory role. With the state monopoly removed, the way was opened for competition in telecommunications. Radio stations broadcast in Arabic, French, and Kabyle.

V

Government

Under the constitution adopted in 1976, Algeria became a socialist republic. The constitution declared the National Liberation Front (Front de Libération Nationale, FLN) as the sole legitimate political party. A revised constitution in 1989 abandoned the commitment to socialism and allowed the formation of other political parties. After it became clear that the Islamic Salvation Front (Front Islamique du Salut, FIS), an Islamist party, would gain a legislative majority in the country’s first multiparty parliamentary elections in 1992, the elections were annulled and the country’s unicameral legislature, the National People’s Assembly, was suspended. Algeria was ruled by a High Council of State from 1992 until 1994, when the council appointed a president as head of state. After a constitutional referendum, the constitution was again revised in 1996, most significantly to ban political parties based solely on ethnicity, religion, or another separatist feature, and to create a new, bicameral legislature.

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A

Executive and Legislature

A president is head of state of Algeria. The president is popularly elected to a five-year term and may serve no more than two terms. The president appoints a prime minister as head of government. The prime minister in turn appoints a council of ministers to help carry out the functions of government.

Algeria has a bicameral legislature consisting of a 144-member Council of the Nation as the upper house and a 389-member National People’s Assembly as the lower house. One-third of the Council of the Nation members are appointed by the president; the other two-thirds are chosen by municipal councils. All members serve six-year terms. Members of the National People’s Assembly are popularly elected to four-year terms.

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