In less than two months, peaceful, popular protests dislodged a president who ruled for two decades
EVEN HIS critics found Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s last moments as president difficult to watch. After two decades in power, the Algerian leader stepped down on April 2nd. Slumped in a wheelchair, dressed in a baggy djellaba robe instead of his usual three-piece suit, he looked like a doddering old man roused from bed in the middle of the night. He struggled even to hand his letter of resignation to the head of the constitutional committee .
Abdelkader Bensalah, the head of parliament’s upper house, becomes interim president and must organise elections within 90 days. Mr Bensalah, a Bouteflika loyalist, is familiar with the duties, for he often stepped in when the ailing president was too ill to welcome foreign dignitaries and suchlike. He backed the president’s plan to seek a fifth term and did not endorse the protests. His elevation may give succour to Mr Bouteflika’s allies—except that many of them seem to be in custody.
But the list of detainees looks rather like a purge orchestrated by General Salah. A former president, Liamine Zéroual—himself pushed out by the army in 1999—recently wove a tale of intrigue in a letter to an Algerian newspaper. He claimed that Mohamed Mediène, a retired spy chief who was the longtime éminence grise of Algerian politics, asked him to oversee a transitional period. Said Bouteflika reportedly blessed the scheme.
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