The Algerian parliament yesterday voted in favour of changes to the constitution that would allow President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to seek a third term in office.
The move by a parliament controlled by pro-government parties drew immediate criticism, with opposition parties describing the constitutional amendments as an act of “political swindling”.
Although Mr Bouteflika has not said overtly that he will seek re-election, he is expected to be a candidate in next year’s race.
The president has long made it known that he wanted to abrogate the two term limit in the constitution, but analysts say he has had to surmount resistance from the powerful military establishment which brought him to office in 1999.
“This is the third coup d’etat in Algeria’s history,” charged Mohsene Belabbas, a member of parliament from the opposition Rally for Culture and Democracy, whose deputies voted against the amendment. “It is not good for democracy and it is not good for Algeria because Mr Bouteflika wants to become president for life.”
The amendments give Mr Bouteflika – who had the support of deputies from the three parties which make up the governing coalition as well as that of some smaller parties – greater presidential authority and reduce the power of the prime minister.
Algeria, a big hydrocarbons producer that supplies 20 per cent of Europe’s natural gas needs, spent most of the 1990s in the grip of a bloody conflict sparked by the army’s interruption of an election in 1992 that an Islamist party had been set to win.
Although violence still sputters on in Algeria after local Islamic militants reorganised themselves into a group loyal to al-Qaeda, Mr Bouteflika is widely credited with having ended the civil strife.
Over the years he has offered amnesties to Islamic militants who laid down their arms, helping to deplete the ranks of the rebels already weakened by army strikes.
During his 10 years as president, Mr Bouteflika has managed to expand his powers at the expense of his backers in the army and intelligence services. However, he has also protected them from scrutiny of their human rights records during the civil war, in which 150,000 people were killed in atrocities committed by both sides. A constitutional amendment a few years ago made it a punishable crime to make accusations against the military.
Critics of the president say that, despite Algeria’s vast wealth in recent years as a result of high oil prices, Mr Bouteflika has failed to raise living standards for the country’s 34m people.
The economy remains for the most part undiversified, unemployment is high and hundreds of young men die every year at sea as they try to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to the shores of Europe.
By Heba Saleh in Cairo |- Financial Times