Algeria’s president of two decades on Monday abandoned his bid for a fifth term following unprecedented protests over his fitness for office, but his simultaneous postponement of an election set for next month has critics worried that he intends to hold on to power.
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has rarely been seen in public since he had a stroke in 2013 and just returned from a two-week hospital stay in Geneva, Switzerland, promised to establish a panel to plan a rescheduled vote and to put an interim government in place.
In a letter to the nation released by Algeria Press Service, 82-year-old Bouteflika stressed the importance of including Algeria’s disillusioned youth in the reform process and putting the country “in the hands of new generations.”
Photo: Reuters
However, for many of the protesters — students, lawyers and even judges — the most important sentence in the president’s letter read: “There will be no fifth term.”
Celebrations popped up instead of protests on the streets of the capital, Algiers, at the news. Car horns rang out while people waved flags, jumped up and down, and sang the national anthem.
Several thanked Bouteflika.
One described the development as a “real ray of sunshine.”
Others were more cautious, calling their long-time leader’s pledge to step aside just a first step.
Bouteflika did not give a date or timeline for the delayed election.
In the letter, he said that the “national conference” he would task with planning the vote would also be responsible for drafting a new constitution for Algeria.
He added that he would also name an interim government.
The changes were put in motion within hours.
Algerian Minister of the Interior Noureddine Bedoui, a Bouteflika loyalist, was made prime minister and charged with forming the new administration, the state news agency said.
Critics said that they fear the moves could pave the way for the president to install a handpicked successor.
Others saw his decision to postpone the election indefinitely as a threat to democracy in Algeria.
A wily political survivor, Bouteflika fought in Algeria’s independence war against French forces and has played a role in Algeria’s major developments over the past half-century.
He became president in 1999 and reconciled a nation riven by a deadly Muslim insurgency, but questions swirl over whether he is really running the country today.
The protests surprised Algeria’s opaque leadership and freed the country’s people, long fearful of a watchful security apparatus, to openly criticize the president.
Algerians have also expressed anger over corruption that put their country’s oil and gas riches in the hands of a few, while millions of young people struggle to find jobs.
The unprecedented citizens’ revolt drew millions into the streets of cities across the country to demand that Bouteflika abandon his candidacy.
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