Six candidates vie for the presidency
algiers — With less than a week to go before Algeria’s presidential election on Thursday, candidates have been campaigning across the country, with incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika expected to win a fourth term.
Below are profiles of the six candidates:
Abdulaziz Bouteflika
Aged, 77, first came to power in 1999 and was re-elected in 2004 and 2009 after having amended the constitution to allow him to stand again. He is credited with helping end Algeria’s civil war in the 1990s that killed up to 200,000.
Born in Morocco on March 2, 1937 to a family of Algerian origin, he enlisted with the National Liberation Army in 1956 to fight against Algeria’s French colonial rulers in the war of independence.
After independence in 1962, he served in parliament and at the age of 25 was appointed minister of sports and youth, and later as foreign minister.
The last few years of his rule as president have been dogged by corruption scandals implicating members of his inner circle and serious concerns about his health.
In April 2013, he was hospitalised in Paris after suffering a mini-stroke, returning home three months later looking frail.
Since then he has chaired just two cabinet meetings and has only very rarely been seen in public, always appearing seated, his voice barely audible. His candidacy has drawn sharp criticism in Algeria, from youth activists to senior political figures.
Ali Benflis
Is considered Bouteflika’s key challenger.
A former prime minister, 69, he decided to stand in the election following a 10-year absence from politics after he lost the 2004 poll. Born in eastern Algeria on September 8, 1944, Benflis studied law, served as a justice minister and co-founded Algeria’s League of Human Rights in the 1980s.
In 1999, he ran Bouteflika’s campaign as a trusted aide who later headed the ruling National Liberation Front.
But in 2004 he ran against the president and won only 6.4 percent of the vote, while Bouteflika was re-elected with 85 per cent.
Ali Fawzi Rebaine
An optician by trade, 59-yearold Rebaine co-founded Algeria’s first human rights group in 1985 and three years later helped set up a national antitorture panel.
In 1985, he was arrested and sentenced to 13 years in prison on charges of undermining state security and membership of an illegal association. He was freed under a presidential pardon two years later.
He was born January 24, 1955 in Algiers and heads the Ahd 54 party. This is the third time he has stood in a presidential election
Moussa Touati
Touati, 60, set up the Algerian National Front in 1999 and is a former soldier who was trained in Syria and in Libya
He has stood as a candidate in two previous presidential elections. Born October 3, 1953 in central Algeria, he worked for the customs authority and has headed a committee set up to defend the interests of children of those killed in the war of independence.
Louisa Hanoune
The only woman in the race is a 60-year-old member of parliament and a prominent leftist politician who ran in two previous presidential contests.
Born April 7, 1954 in eastern Algeria, Hanoune heads the Workers Party and co-founded an association for equal rights between the sexes in 1989. She was arrested twice in the 1980s when she worked for a clandestine socialist workers’ group.
Abdelaziz Belaid
A first-time challenger for the presidency, Belaid is the youngest of the six candidates at 50.
He has headed the opposition El Moustakbel Front since 2012, after quitting the ruling National Liberation Front, which he joined when he was 23.—