As Algeria and Tunisia gear up for the next national elections in April and December 2019, the two elections have one striking commonality: the incumbent leaders, Presidents Beji Caid Essebsi and Abdelaziz Bouteflika, are not only roughly three times older than the median age in their countries (28 and 31) but they are also ailing and perceived as out of touch with the challenging realities their societies face. Since the 2011 popular upheaval, the new party system in Tunisia experienced damaging structural fragmentation, and the leading parties, Nidaa Tounes and Ennahda, faced internal divisions and dissent which now threaten fragile political gains and stability. In Algeria, more serious long-term fragmentation has been ailing the opposition while the pro-establishment, status-quo parties, the FLN and RND, have consolidated their power and expect to gain from maintaining President Bouteflika in office for a 5th term. This paper will comparatively examine the Algerian and Tunisian political context, dynamics and challenges with a special focus on the characteristics of the top leadership, including the generational cleavage, and the party systems and electoral processes and their repeat failure to yield meaningful change for the long term, i.e., inclusion, political civility, institutional restructuring, and ideological adaptation. This is a serious condition since both countries are in the throes of a potentially destabilizing economic crisis, security concerns, and political animus. The dependent variable here is political gerontocracy in Algeria and Tunisia, while the independent variables include, for now, the party systems and the electoral systems that affect them. The paper will look into the role played by the nature and characteristics of the party systems and the electoral rules that maintain in power an aging leadership that has little in common with the bulk of the youthful and dynamic society—both party and election system can be dependent variables since they are shaped by incumbents’ preferences and manipulations. The paper will be informed by several works on relevant topics, including Bogdanor and Butler, eds., Democracy and Elections; Taagepera and Shugart, Seats and Votes: The Effects and Determinants of Electoral Systems; and Lust, Ed., “Democratization by Elections?” It hopes to benefit from the ongoing Governance and Elections in the Middle East Project (GEMEP) and will use information from dozens of interviews conducted this winter in Algeria, fieldwork which will resume next summer in both countries.