Bouteflika to Leave in One Year If Re-Elected

By Staff, Agencies

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, facing mass protests over his 20 years in power, will run in April’s elections with an offer to step down after a year if he is re-elected, his campaign manager said Sunday. The announcement read out by Abdel-Ghani Zaalane on Bouteflika’s behalf was aimed at appeasing those who had taken to the streets this weekend to protest against the 82-year-old’s plans to remain in office.

The comments were Bouteflika’s first since the biggest displays of dissent in Algeria since the 2011 protests that unseated rulers in neighboring countries.

Tens of thousands of protesters had been rallying throughout the day in cities around Algeria, calling on Bouteflika not to submit election papers for the April 18 polls, the deadline for which was Sunday.

Zaalane arrived to submit the documents Sunday evening, but there was no sign of Bouteflika, who Swiss television said remained at a hospital in Geneva. The president has rarely been seen in public since he suffered a stroke in 2013 and has for years communicated via letters read out by aides.

Students gathered in their thousands Sunday at university faculties, one of them near the Constitutional Council where presidential candidates have to file their papers. Students chanted: “No to a fifth term!” and “A free and democratic Algeria!”

Thousands later marched through the city center. A diplomatic source estimated that as many as 70,000 people had massed in Algiers, including a rally at Bab Ezzouar University, the country’s biggest.

According to witnesses and local television footage, protesters also turned out in their thousands in cities including Oran, Constantine, Annaba, Batna, Blida, Skikda and Bouira. Some 6,000 also protested in central Paris, where many Algerians live.

By Sunday evening, seven candidates had registered to run against Bouteflika. Opposition groups failed to agree on one candidate, making any campaign an uphill challenge in a country dominated by one party - the FLN - since independence.

Analysts say the protesters, who began hitting the streets 10 days ago, lack leadership and organization in a country still dominated by veterans of the 1954-62 independence war against France, including Bouteflika.

But traditionally weak and divided opposition and civic groups have called for protests to go on should Bouteflika continue to pursue re-election.