When the chief of staff of the Algerian army, General Said Chengriha, summoned military commanders and security services to ensure the “success” of the July 2 legislative elections, he was not issuing a neutral procedural directive. He was signaling, with the institutional weight of the armed forces behind him, that the upcoming parliamentary vote belongs to the state-managed political project rather than to the Algerian electorate. The general’s framing of the elections as a continuation of the “political re-engineering of the state” since the November 2020 constitutional revision was not incidental language. It was a confession.

That confession lands differently when placed alongside the cascade of disqualifications that has preceded polling day. Algeria’s Independent National Elections Authority has barred hundreds of candidates from contesting the elections, invoking Article 200 of the electoral law, which prohibits individuals “known to the public” for ties to suspicious business circles or for potentially influencing voter choice. The provision has no evidentiary standard attached to it. It requires no conviction, no judicial proceeding, and no transparently documented basis. Parties spanning the opposition and nominal loyalist formations alike have had their lists decimated, with candidates informed of........

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