Photos: Algeria on cusp of change as protest movement marks 1 year

Demonstrators carry flags and banners during an anti-government protest in Algiers, Algeria February 21. The unprecedented pro-democracy movement is still hoping to upend the whole political establishment, even if the tens of thousands of protesters in Algiers now appear less numerous than in the weeks after February 22, 2019.

As weekly Muslim prayers ended Friday, the main thoroughfares in Algiers filled up with protesters young and old, some calling for freedom for imprisoned protesters or for leaders to step aside. Police, who have arrested dozens of protesters over the past year, stood watch by their vehicles.

Africa’s largest nation, whose powerful army has shadowed its rulers - or ruled outright - in an opaque system of governance since independence from France in 1962, is on the cusp of a new era, but there is no certainty about what the future will look like.

Authorities in Algeria, a gas-rich nation that has failed to adequately provide for its booming and youthful population, know they can no longer ignore the citizens they represent.

Algeria, a strategic partner of the West in fighting terrorism, appears set on an inexorable path to change, analysts and activists say.

he trigger for the protests was the announcement that then-President Abdul Aziz Bouteflika would seek to extend his 20 years in office - despite a 2013 stroke that had left him a nearly invisible leader.

Some experts view the protest movement as a birthing station for a new generation of leaders to replace the old guard and an outmoded conception of governance. They see legislative elections at the end of the year as a prime forum for members of the pro-democracy movement to try to renew the political class from within.