Algeria fought an eight-year war to gain independence from the French in 1962. President Abdullah Ziz Utaflika kept tweaking the Constitution to be able to run again, and again he ran for four terms. He hadn't been seen for two years when he announced a run for a fifth term in 2019. That public fury spilled into national protests, and swiftly led to his resignation. The Economist's Dan Smiley says Algeria is basically an unhappy country run by a very opaque and unpopular government.
Democrats will have a bit more breathing room in the Senate, with an outright majority provided by
Reverend Raphael Warnock’s win. We ask what the state-level victory reveals about national politics. Algeria’s leadership has benefited from an oil-and-gas boom; lamentably, its long-suffering citizenry
has not. And why an artificial intelligence success at the game
Diplomacy is significant. Help us make the show better: take our listener survey at
http://economist.com/intelligencesurvey For full access to print, digital and audio editions of
The Economist, subscribe here
www.economist.com/intelligenceoffer