Huge crowds call on president to quit
With Algerian flags on their backs, hundreds of thousands of people of all ages marched for a fourth consecutive Friday through Algeria’s capital and other cities yesterday to press for an end to the 20-year-rule of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
Four days after April elections were cancelled and the president withdrew his bid to seek a fifth term, in a clear response to last week’s nationwide marches, protesters demanded that he leave at the end of his mandate – something that was not part of the official plan.
The crowds packing leafy boulevards throughout central Algiers appeared to be bigger than a week ago, and the question on all minds was what, if anything, authorities might do next.
Chanting ‘‘Bouteflika, get out’’ and other slogans, diverse groups converged on three public plazas that have become focal points for an exceptional, month-long public uprising against the country’s shadowy leadership.
‘‘God willing, he will leave soon,’’ protester Karim Mohamed said of Bouteflika, ‘‘because this is the demand of the entire people. And God willing, the demand of all the people will be met.’’
Algerians have barely seen Bouteflika, 82, in public since he suffered a stroke in 2013, and many are angry at a power structure widely seen as corrupt. Millions struggle to make ends meet despite the country’s gas wealth.
The protesters were so numerous that it was difficult to move on some streets in Algiers.
Algerian media reported protests in several other cities around Africa’s biggest country. Students, teachers, judges and unions were among those joining the marches. There were no reports of violence.
The peaceful nature of the marches, bringing together the diversity of the Algerian population, may be all the more remarkable because they have been charged with high emotion.
A group of young women in Algiers delighted in taking selfies with smiling police officers. Shops along the march routes turned a brisk profit selling Algerian flags and pizza or honey-filled pastries. The crowd included women with and without headscarves, young people, and fathers carrying children on their shoulders.
Protesters said they wanted to send a mass message of rejection of Bouteflika’s attempt this week to defuse Algeria’s political crisis. While he abandoned plans for a fifth term, and promised reforms that address the concerns of frustrated, struggling youth, his decision to cancel the election left critics fearing he could cling to power.
Police surrounding Algiers’ central post office at the start of the protest appeared largely unarmed, and their plastic riot shields rested on the ground or in vans nearby. This could be a message from Algerian authorities – known for their heavy-handed security – that they want to avoid unrest or provoke public anger.
The crowd seemed determined to prevent any politicians from taking advantage of the protests for personal gain, shouting down outspoken Left-wing figure Karim Tabou when he tried to give a speech.
Some protesters held signs reading ‘‘Army, people, same fight’’, in an apparent appeal to Algeria’s powerful army not to crack down on demonstrations.
So far the protest movement has been calm, with just a few incidents of violence on the sidelines. But the spectre of past violence haunts many Algerians, notably a civil war in the 1990s between Islamist insurgents and security forces that left some 200,000 people dead.
Bouteflika is credited with helping to reconcile the nation after that, but is accused of becoming increasingly out of touch as his presidency has dragged on.
‘‘God willing, the demand of all the people will be met.’’ Karim Mohamed, protester