Algeria’s Feb. 22 uprising against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s two-decade rule coincided with the exhaustion of an economic model based on the unequal redistribution of the country’s energy wealth. Even before the ailing leader’s bid for a fifth term triggered the current political crisis, some experts had been saying the country could experience an economic crisis in the next few years absent an unlikely long-term hike in oil prices.
The continuing overall drop on the world market has laid bare the Algerian economy’s structural weaknesses. With hydrocarbon exports still making up more than 30% of the economy absent any real effort at diversification, Algiers has been printing money for the past two years: From late 2017 through January 2019, more than 6 trillion dinars — $50 billion — have been put on the market.