When journalist and political analyst Fouad Gandoul chose to highlight Algeria in his article published on January 23, 2025, in the Belgian Flemish newspaper « De Tijd », he didn’t need much imagination. Reality speaks for itself: a country with all the potential to be a regional power, yet trapped in an endless cycle of repression and tensions. A performance funded by oil revenues, with a script dictated by generals who only know how to push forward blindly.
Gandoul describes a confused and stagnant system, where the army holds all the power and no dissenting voice is tolerated.
Meanwhile, the state-controlled media has become a propaganda machine, repeating the same narrative over and over: “Morocco is the enemy, conspiracies are everywhere, traitors lurk in every corner!” But this paranoia is costly, as economic and social crises snowball into a looming disaster.
Algeria’s economy resembles an old car running on a single fuel source: oil and gas. When prices rise, the regime boasts as if it has found a miracle solution; when they fall, it resorts to blaming foreign conspiracies.
With 30% youth unemployment, the country is sitting on a time bomb. Yet, instead of investing in its future, the regime spends billions on arms deals and military exercises. Those who refuse to wait risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean, escaping a homeland that treats them as a security threat rather than as partners in development.
While Algeria claims to be a pillar of regional stability, it is in fact one of its biggest sources of turmoil—border tensions with Morocco, unjustified military moves, and internal repression. Dissent is met with imprisonment, surveillance, and even torture.
For Gandoul, Algeria is dancing on the edge of chaos, where no real solutions or reforms exist—only a desperate attempt to prolong the life of a regime that fears its own people more than any external enemy.
The real question is no longer if change will happen, but how much longer this broken system can hold before it collapses.
