Algeria’s Bouteflika promises to resign, to leave his mark

Bloomberg

Battered by more than a month of protests, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said he would step down before the end of his fourth term on April 28, but suggested he would still craft the foundations of the transition to come.
The announcement appeared aimed at avoiding what could be a military-sanctioned, and embarrassing, constitutional push to have him declared unfit for office. It was also unclear whether it would do much to dampen the weeks of protests that only grew louder in the face of apparent defiance by him and his backers to demands from demonstrators.
“This is too little, too late,” said Anthony Skinner, Middle East and North Africa director at Verisk Maplecroft in London. “I doubt protesters will settle for anything short of a nominally independent transition team, plus free and fair elections.”
The move by the ailing 82-year-old leader, however, seemed likely to fall far short of that, and protests resumed, with hundreds of students demonstrating to demand regime change.
Citing a statement from the presidency, the official APS news agency said the transitional period would begin with the departure of the man who has led the OPEC member since 1999. Bouteflika who would take “important steps to ensure continuity in the functioning of state institutions” during those changes, it said.
The president has replaced the government, and Algerian media was rife with speculation that the next step would be to name a new head of parliament’s upper house. That person, under the constitution, would temporarily inherit the presidency, meaning Bouteflika would essentially be handpicking his successor.
The protests against Bouteflika, which began on February 22, have mushroomed to encompass calls for the complete removal of a ruling regime viewed as corrupt by the youth that make up the majority of the country’s 42 million people. Protesters had been backed in recent weeks by unions and political parties.
The tide turned against Bouteflika when long-time ally and army chief of staff Ahmed Gaid Salah said it was time to invoke a constitutional article that could see the president declared unfit for office.
“This looks like it was effectively the outcome of a compromise between the army and the Bouteflika faction after the statement by the chief of staff,” said Riccardo Fabiani, senior analyst on geopolitics for Energy Aspects. “It was clear that he couldn’t stay in power for long.”
The drama unfolding in Algeria is being closely watched across the Mediterranean.