Algeria Travel

Ahmed ben Bella, a leading figurehead of opposition to French rule, became independent Algeria’s first elected president. He pledged a ‘revolutionary Arab-Islamic state based on the principles of socialism and collective leadership at home and anti-imperialism abroad’. Despite the euphoria surrounding independence and Ben Bella’s popularity, many of the old rivalries that simmered away during the war continued to plague the country and Ben Bella’s leadership style did not foster orderly administration in a country still devastated by war. He was overthrown in 1965 by the defence minister and FLN chief of staff, Colonel Houari Boumedienne. Ben Bella spent many years in exile in Switzerland, but he would later return to lead his party, the Movement for Democracy in Algeria (MDA), in 1990.Boumedienne was a cautious pragmatist. He set about rebuilding the country’s economy, which had come unstuck at the time of independence with the departure of the majority of the country’s administrators and technical experts, all of whom were Europeans. Unemployment and underemployment remained serious problems and many Algerians were forced to work in France, despite the ill-feeling which existed there towards them.There was very little political change in Algeria under Boumedienne. The FLN was the sole political party, pursuing basically secular, socialist policies. Bad planning by the lumbering centralised bureaucracy saw agricultural production fall below levels achieved under the French. The economy was saved by the discovery of large gas and oil reserves in the Sahara, but few of the proceeds reached ordinary Algerians.