President finally bows to pressure
ALGERIAN President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has renounced his bid for a fifth term in office and postponed the April 18 presidential elections, bowing to pressure from hundreds of thousands of protesters who have gathered for more than two weeks.
The new measures he announced on Monday included dissolving the election committee and forming a new body to draft a new constitution – which means he will stay in power at least until the end of the year.
Algerians have taken to the streets daily since February 22, united behind one demand: that the 82-year-old leader drop from the presidential race.
“There will be no fifth term,” Bouteflika said.
“There will be no presidential election on April 18,” he added, telling protesters directly: “The purpose is to respond to the urgent request that you have directed to me.”
He said his “age and health condition” only allow him to “perform his final duty towards the Algerian people, which is to lay the foundations of a new republic, that will serve as a framework for the new Algerian regime that we all aspire to”.
The ailing president suffered a stroke in 2013 and is rarely seen in public. The statement comes one day after the wheelchair-bound octogenarian returned from a two-week medical trip to Switzerland.
Shortly after Bouteflika’s statement, Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia submitted his resignation. Interior Minister Noureddine Bedoui was quickly tapped by the president to take Ouyahia’s place.
The president also appointed Ramtane Lamamra as vice prime minister and minister of foreign affairs.
The demonstrations united people from different sectors of society – from school pupils and university students to lawyers and judges – in the capital, Algiers, and in other provinces across the energy-rich country.
Bouteflika, who as been in power since 1999, is North Africa’s only president to have survived the Arab Spring revolts, which started in neighbouring Tunisia in 2010. | dpa African News Agency (ANA)