Buteflika resigns to be a candidate | President …

Algerian President Abdelaziz Buteflika resigned yesterday to seek a fifth term. The announcement took place after the huge protests in the country in which he was accused of being hooked on power despite his fragile health. However, he announced that he would postpone the elections until the end of the process of political and constitutional reforms. Implicitly, he then indicated that he was considering extending his government beyond the end of his term on April 28.

"There will be no fifth term and this has never been my intention, because my state of health and my age give me the last duty towards the Algerian people to contribute to the installation of bases of a new republic, "said Buteflika in a message to the nation president issued by the official APS agency. In this text, the President declares his commitment to transmit the powers and prerogatives of the President of the Republic to the successor who, he said, the Algerian people will choose freely. "There will be no presidential elections on April 18," the president added, adding that he was responding to an insistent demand by many Algerians. "The next presidential election will be held at the end of an inclusive and independent national conference (…) that is fairly representative of Algerian society and the sensitivities that cross it, which should be striving to achieve the goal of the next meeting. complete its mandate before the end of 2019, "concluded.

The resignation of Buteflika, in power for twenty years, to be re-elected for a fifth consecutive term is accompanied by the resignation of the Prime Minister, Ahmed Ouyahia, and his entire cabinet. His decision comes amidst a wave of mbad protests in every corner of the country and rumors about his true state of health, since the 82-year-old president was admitted to a Swiss hospital for fifteen days until his death. On Sunday. .

The mobilizations began several months ago on the football fields and swept through the country 's streets on February 22, two days before being transferred to Geneva for hospitalization and before the regime suspended the proceedings. inauguration of the new airport of Algiers. , which I attended. Since then, they have grown every Friday and gone from a protest against Bouteflika's fifth term to a popular clamor of hundreds of thousands of people against the corruption of a regime dominated by the armed forces and the armed forces. secret services since independence. of France in 1962.

Imposed by the army, Bouteflika became president after the elections of April 1999, during which he was elected only candidate after his six opponents had denounced a possible electoral fraud. While Algeria was in the midst of a civil war against Islamist guerrillas – a conflict that officially killed about 200,000 people in 10 years – the new president sought to restore peace. In September 1999, he obtained a mbadive "yes" vote in the referendum on the amnesty law of armed Islamists who did not commit blood crimes, rape or surrender, which led to the surrender of thousands d & # 39; Islamists.

Buteflika then concluded the path of rapprochement with the Islamist guerrillas opened by his predecessor, decreed an amnesty, broke the resistance of the most radical part of the army and pacified the country, which entered an era of reconciliation and reconstruction not yet completed. .

In 2013, a cardiovascular event reduced his physical abilities and prevented him from campaigning in the presidential elections of the following year. Despite this, he won the election again. Since then, he does not speak in public, he moves in a wheelchair pushed by his brother Said and his appearances in public are rare, reduced to the images recorded by the state channel on the occasion of the council from the minister or visits from foreign dignitaries.