[1] Preceding the coup were social-political-economic problems such as a 1986 collapse of oil prices (at the time 95% of Algerian exports and 60% of the government budget came from petroleum), a population explosion without jobs or housing to accommodate it, rhetoric of Third World socialism solidarity by the party and government masking "corruption on a grand scale" (and discrediting the "vocabulary of socialism"),[2] a concentration of power and resources by the military and FLN party elite originating from the east-side of Algeria.

[2] The ruling FLN (National Liberation Front (Algeria)) "banned all opposition" but the oil money used to pacify the population had been decimated.

"[4] A secret meeting was held in December 1991 to discuss the options available to the military, attended by all senior generals including Khaled Nezzar, Abdelmalek Guenaizia, leaders of the navy, gendarmerie and security services.

[6] The army then moved onto the streets of Algiers the next day as tanks and troops guarded important locations in the city, and suspended the electoral process.

"[8] Arguments against this line include that Washington's influence was likely limited with Algeria's ruling party, the anti-capitalist, anti-secular, anti-European culture, pro-Islamic identity third world socialist FLN;[9] that after its massive 1990 municipal elections victory, the FIS was praised for its virtue in governance,[10] but the solutions it offered to Algeria's problems -- forced hijab, separate swimming areas, banning French culture and any use of the French language, liquor stores, video shops, enforcing sharia law in general -- however popular, were unlikely to be much help against Algeria's long-term problems;[11] that while the Islamists were very much in favor of the opportunity to gain power through democratic elections, that doesn't mean they would have surrendered power after elections later on, and statements by its leaders before the coup,[4] as well as the killings of hundreds of civilians, foreign and domestic, by Islamist guerillas in the subsequent bloody and destructive civil war[12][13][14] do not inspire confidence that it would have, if the coup had never happened.