Understanding the Marginal Role of the Election Management Body (EMB) in Algeria’s 2014 General Election

Abstract

The ideological struggle between the West and former liberation movements on the veracity of the post-cold war multiparty democracy is still alive. In Algeria, the ruling Front for the Liberation of Algeria (FLN) continues to view with suspicion this notion, convinced it’s a neo-colonial ploy to remove them from power. It is against this intensely contested background that Electoral Management Bodies (EMB) have emerged and trying to find a role. In the Algerian April 2014 Election, the ruling party was confronted by the surging popularity of the Islamic Salvation Front (F.I.S). In that election, the EMB played a marginal, if not overtly partisan role, in spite of the 2012 recommendations by the European Union to undertake reforms. In this case study, it is clear that establishing and consolidating EMBs on the African continent as part of democratisation is still very much work in progress.