Algeria's President Chadli Bendjedid last week took a daring gamble that given the choice, Algerians will decline to replace him with an Islamic fundamentalist. After two weeks of angry antigovernment demonstrations by Islamic fundamentalists and their supporters, Bendjedid agreed to hold both presidential and parliamentary elections within the next six months in exchange for a cessation of hostilities by the protesters.
Thousands of fundamentalists had battled against police, demanding that elections scheduled for June 27 include the presidency as well as the legislature. By the beginning of last week, clouds of tear gas hung over the capital and about a dozen...
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