Monday 27 June 2011

Algeria: 'Le Grand Flop de Bouteflika'

Abdelkader Bensalah's committee, or commission as it is called, has wound up ignominiously after two months of insulting and belittling Algerians. One headline referred to it as 'Le Grand Flop de Bouteflika'; another: 'Bensalah's circus ends in indifference'.

Besides such external powers as the UK and US, and now it seems the EU itself, who are doing all that they can to prop up the Algerian regime, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's attempts at constitutional and political reform have so far achieved nothing other than confirming to the Algerian people that he had no intention of do anything more than 'wasting time', many of Algeria's own media headline writers have described the embarrassingly pitiful exercise.

The question is: where does it – Bouteflika's reform process – go from here? Bensalah will at some point make some sort of report back to the President who will no doubt make some sort of recommendation. But it will be surprising if many Algerians will be listening to him by then. What he has managed to achieve so far in this exercise is to insult and humiliate the Algerian by treating them with such contempt.

Most members of the opposition, as well as many senior members of the regime itself, are voiced comments to the effect that this has not been one of the President's most intelligent t moves and is one that is likely to come back and bite him – probably when the summer comes to an end.

For more news and expert analysis about Algeria, please see Algeria Focus and Algeria Politics & Security.

© 2011 Menas Associates

No comments:

Post a Comment