[Al Jazeera] Thousands keep up call for entire government surrounding former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to quit.
| Africa North |
| Protests in Algeria as prominent figures arrested in graft probe |
| 2019-06-22 |
| [Al Jazeera] Thousands keep up call for entire government surrounding former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to quit. |
| Link |
| Africa North |
| Algeria's Bouteflika pulls out of race for 5th term |
| 2019-03-12 |
| [PULSE.NG] Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced his withdrawal Monday from a bid to win another term in office and postponed an April 18 election, following weeks of protests against his candidacy. |
| Link |
| Africa North |
| Anti-Bouteflika strikes hit Algeria's schools, transport |
| 2019-03-11 |
| [PULSE.NG] Thousands of students took to the streets of Algeria on Sunday against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's bid for a fifth term, as schools shut and transport in the capital halted as part of a protest strike. |
| Link |
| Africa North |
| Tens of thousands protest in Algeria as Bouteflika stays defiant |
| 2019-03-09 |
 [PULSE.NG] Tens of thousands protested across Algeria on Friday in the biggest rallies yet against ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's bid for a fifth term, despite the defiant leader's warning of the risk of "chaos". |
| Link |
| Africa North |
| Bouteflika being treated at Swiss hospital |
| 2019-02-28 |
| [PULSE.NG] Algeria's ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika remains at a Swiss hospital as protests grow in his country against his bid for a fifth term, the Tribune de Geneve newspaper reported Wednesday. Citing what it described as multiple and well-informed sources, the TdG reported that Bouteflika has been at the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) since Sunday. HUG is a public teaching hospital, but has a private wing that could accommodate VIPs seeking privacy, according to the hospital's website. A HUG spokesman declined to comment on the report. Bouteflika, who uses a wheelchair and has rarely been seen in public since suffering a stroke in 2013, announced on February 10 that he would seek re-election in the April 18 vote. The 81-year-old has repeatedly received medical care in Switzerland since the 1980s. His office had previously announced that the president was scheduled to travel to Switzerland for "routine medical checks" ahead of the election. |
| Link |
| Africa North |
| Algerian blogger/journalist dies |
| 2016-12-12 |
| A British-Algerian journalist died Sunday after having staged a hunger strike to protest a two-year jail term for offending Algeria's president in a poem posted online, his lawyer said. "I can confirm the death of the journalist Mohamed Tamalt in Bab el-Oued hospital after a hunger strike of more than three months and a three-month coma" that followed, Amine Sidhoum said on Facebook. The prison service, in a statement said Tamalt had died of a lung infection for which he was receiving treatment since it was detected on December 4. He had been in hospital since the end of August. Tamalt, a dual national, launched the hunger strike on the day of his arrest near his parents' house in the capital Algiers on June 27, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). The 42-year-old blogger and freelance journalist, who ran a website from London where he lived, was charged with "offending" President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and "defaming a public authority" in the poem which he shared on Facebook. A court in Algiers sentenced him two years in prison on July 11 and fined him 200,000 dinars ($1,800), and an appeals court upheld the ruling a month later. Amnesty International urged Algerian authorities on Sunday to open an "independent and transparent investigation into the circumstances" of the journalist's death. Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF), for its part, said it was "shocked" by Tamalt's death which had dealt a blow to freedom of information in Algeria. "Why was there such a conviction just for words on Facebook which did no harm to anyone?" asked Yasmine Kacha, head of the North Africa department of RSF. The New York-based HRW had urged Algerian authorities to release him in August when he was reportedly in critical condition. "The Algerian authorities should quash the case against Tamalt and send the message that free speech will be respected in Algeria," it said at the time. |
| Link |
| Africa North |
| Loyalist of Algeria's Bouteflika named chief of ruling coalition party |
| 2015-06-11 |
| [ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s cabinet director and loyal backer Ahmed Ouyahia was elected as the new leader of one of the two ruling parties on Wednesday, confirming his status of potential presidential successor. Speculation over Bouteflika’s health since he suffered a stroke two years ago, and whether he will be able to end his fourth term in 2019, is fuelling debate over who might replace the independence veteran who has been in office since 1999. The North African OPEC state is at a delicate juncture after a collapse of oil prices cut into energy revenues that make up 95 percent of its exports and more than half the state budget. |
| Link |
| Africa North |
| Algeria calls for OPEC to cut production |
| 2014-12-29 |
| [ARABNEWS] Algeria’s oil minister has called on OPEC to cut production and raise the price of oil, which has plunged dramatically in the last six months. The call by Youcef Yousfi to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, of which Algeria is a member, comes as the country is struggling to deal with a halving of oil prices from $120 barrel to $60 a barrel. “For us, OPEC has to intervene to correct the imbalance and cut production to bring up prices and defend the income of its member states,” Yousfi said in remarks carried by the state news agency. While Algeria has some $200 billion foreign reserves, enough to cover imports for the next several years, it is heavily dependent on its oil revenue which provides 97 percent of its hard currency income and 60 percent of the budget. In a cabinet meeting Tuesday, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika for the first time expressed concern over the “worrisome” situation and made vague promises of cost-cutting. The first of such austerity measures came Saturday when Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said there would be a freeze on public sector hiring in 2015. Some 60 percent of the jobs in the country come from the government. Major infrastructure projects, such as public transportation in Algiers and highways in the countryside are also expected to be put on hold. Long flush with money from its gas and oil exports, Algeria operates an extensive welfare state. Subsidies, which amount to 21 percent of the country’s annual economic output, cover electricity and many foodstuffs. Gasoline is the cheapest in North Africa. The government also subsidizes education and provides housing. Social unrest, even before the scattered protests of the Arab Spring, was effectively bought off with higher wages and promises of housing — all funded by the bountiful oil receipts. |
| Link |
| Africa North |
| Bouteflika wins fourth term |
| 2014-04-22 |
 [MAGHAREBIA] In a result that surprised no one, 77-year-old Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was re-elected with 81.53% of the vote.Ali Benflis, the sitting president's main rival, took home just 12.18% of the ballots in the results unveiled on Friday (April 18th). Benflis claimed to have information about widespread irregularities, which allegedly increased as the polls neared closing time. |
| Link |
| Africa North | ||
| Opposition cries foul as Bouteflika claims fourth term | ||
| 2014-04-19 | ||
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the ageing independence veteran already in power for 15 years, won re-election on Friday after a vote opponents dismissed as a stage-managed fraud to keep the ailing leader in power.
Bouteflika, 77, was already widely expected to win with the backing of the powerful ruling Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) party, which has dominated the political system since independence from France in 1962. Western governments have been allied with Bouteflika in their campaign against militants in the Maghreb and are keen to secure Algerian gas shipments to Europe especially with Ukraineâs crisis threatening Russian supplies. Bouteflika did not campaign himself, but loyalists praise him for guiding Algeria out of a 1990s war with Islamists that killed 200,000 people. The conflict left many Algerians wary of the turmoil that has swept neighbouring Tunisia, Egypt and Libya since their âArab Springâ revolts in 2011. Six opposition parties boycotted Thursdayâs vote, saying it would not reform a system mostly closed to change since the FLNâs one-party rule in the early post-independence years.
| ||
| Link |
| Africa North |
| Bouteflika Rally Marred by Arrests as Army Kills Armed Islamist |
| 2014-04-07 |
| [AnNahar] Algerian police beefed up security and arrested about 20 people on Sunday at a campaign rally for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's re-election, a day after violence ended a similar gathering. Dozens of students hostile to the ailing 77-year-old's bid for a fourth term tried to demonstrate ahead of the rally in Tizi-Ouzou, in the mainly Berber region of Kabylie east of the capital. "Free and democratic Algeria!" and "Boutef, pull out!" they chanted of the veteran leader, before police arrested about 20 people, journalists said. Abdelmalek Sellal, the former prime minister who is Bouteflika's election campaign manager, then arrived to address the gathering of hundreds of supporters. Bouteflika is widely expected to clinch another term in the April 17 election, but without taking to the campaign trail because of concerns about his health. Tensions over his re-election bid turned violent on Saturday when protesters stormed a campaign rally in Bejaia, also in the Kabylie region, and torched portraits of him before attacking a television crew covering the event. In 2001, 126 people died in Kabylie during violent clashes between the security forces and Berbers protesting about discrimination, poor living and working conditions and alleged government corruption. Bouteflika's main challenger, Ali Benflis, condemned the violence which prompted Sellal to call off Saturday's rally. "I regret that this campaign is taking place in a climate of tensions," Benflis said in a statement issued Sunday at a rally in his hometown of Batna, in another mainly Berber region, the Aures. "I have to be honest and say nothing has been done to ensure it is taking place in a calm and serene" atmosphere, he was quoted as saying. "I call for the respect of freedom of expression in all circumstances, a value which is the cornerstone of my policy of national renewal." Bouteflika's campaign headquarters blamed the violence on the Barakat movement (Arabic for 'That's Enough') formed to oppose his candidacy. Sellal and other Bouteflika aides have been doing the leg work for the president, who is too frail to campaign after a mini stroke last year confined him to hospital in Gay Paree for three months. The defense ministry, meanwhile, said the army killed an armed Islamist and seized weapons and equipment in a raid Saturday on hideouts in Jijel area of Kabylie. |
| Link |
| Africa North |
| Algerians protest Bouteflika candidacy |
| 2014-03-04 |
| [MAGHAREBIA] Algerians on Saturday (March 1st) rallied in the capital to protest a possible fourth term for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Similar demonstrations were held in Bouira and Constantine against Bouteflika's recent decision to seek re-election. According to Amira Bouraoui, a human rights activist and an organiser of the event, the protest movement is not affiliated with any political party. |
| Link |