Under worsening economic conditions, Fundamentalism led by the F.I.S. [Islamic Salvation Front], came to acquire a growing ascendancy throughout the country. Alarmed at their power, the F.L.N.-based regime under Liamine Zeroual in 1992 cancelled the second round of the National Elections. From then on escalated a new civil war, which by the time of the next elections three years later, had killed perhaps as many as 50,000 people — over twice as many as all the French fatalities, civilian as well as military, during the eight years of the War of National Liberation.

QUESTION: How did cancelling a democratic election justify a war that killed more than the entire liberation struggle? This tension between democratic legitimacy and stability is worth untangling.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1694