Algerian army renews call to declare President Bouteflika unfit for office
Algeria's army chief on Saturday repeated a call for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to be declared unfit for office and told opponents not to seek to undermine the military, after weeks of protests demanding an end to the ailing leader's 20-year rule.
Bouteflika, 82, who has rarely been seen in public in recent years, has faced mass demonstrations for more than a month. His announcement that he would not seek a fifth term but that he would not quit immediately has failed to assuage protesters, Reuters said.
On Friday, anti-government protesters again took to the streets of the capital calling for the resignation of the president as his loyalists began abandoning him. Reuters reported a demonstration turnout of a million people, although that figure was disputed by the government.
Algerian newspaper El Khabar reported that business and political leaders in Bouteflika's entourage were selling their "most liquid assets", including luxury villas.
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To break the stalemate, Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Ahmed Gaed Salah made a proposal on Tuesday for the constitutional council to declare Bouteflika unfit for office, a move provided for under article 102 of the charter.
Salah said in a statement issued by the defence ministry on Saturday that most people supported the army's plan but some were resisting, without identifying those opposed to the move.
He said these opponents had met on Saturday to start a media campaign against the army, claiming people were against Salah's proposals.
He said trying to undermine the military, a revered institution in Algeria whose support has long been seen as vital to keeping Bouteflika and the ruling elite in power, was a "red line" that should not be crossed. He did not elaborate.
"All that emerges from these suspicious meetings of proposals that do not conform to constitutional legitimacy or undermine the national army, which is a red line, is totally unacceptable," he said in the statement.
Capital flight, meanwhile, was on the minds of analysts and think-tanks, given the context of an expected change in leadership.
"It is urgent to replace top economic and financial managers immediately and without any delay. This will prevent any headlong rush by current leaders and help block capital flight that is typical of revolutionary circumstances like the situation in Algeria now," Algerian economist Naceur Bourenane told the Arab Weekly.
Bouteflika established himself in the early 2000s by ending a civil war that had claimed 200,000 lives. But he has rarely been seen in public since suffering a stroke in 2013, and now faces the biggest crisis of his two-decade rule.
Under the constitution, the chairman of parliament's upper house, Abdelkader Bensalah, would serve as caretaker president for at least 45 days if Bouteflika were to step down.
Still, there is no obvious long-term successor to rule the nation which secured independence from France in 1962 after years of conflict and was embroiled in a bloody insurgency during the 1990s.
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