clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

Algeria’s guessing game about its president continues

December 10, 2020 at 9:00 am

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune in Algiers, Algeria on 19 December 2019 [RYAD KRAMDI/AFP via Getty Images]

In Algeria’s challenging guessing game, the health and whereabouts of the president have been the hardest to guess, as always. Is President Abdelmadjid Tebboune healthy enough to carry on his duties during such a difficult time for the country? Is he still in Germany, where he arrived for medical treatment over a month ago?

The official story goes like this: Tebboune self-quarantined after aides close to him caught COVID-19. He spent some time in the military hospital in Algiers and then flew to Germany for treatment. On 30 November, we are told that he left the clinic in Germany and is recovering, but is not yet back in Algeria. These are the only updates given by the presidency so far on the president’s health.

This vagueness opened the doors to rumours in the country about Tebboune’s health. Few Algerians believe the official line, given the regime’s history of secrecy. Rumours in such charged public spheres tend to be right sometimes.

Some say he endured multiple surgical procedures, which could explain why he is spending longer recovering. Others point out that neither Germany nor Algeria has any medical treatment for COVID-19, and if that is the case, they ask why he went to Germany in the first place. More sinister hearsay goes as far as to allege that he was shot and required medical intervention in Germany. As far-fetched as that might seem, the official narrative is far from acceptable to most Algerians who demand to know what is really going on.

Since 28 October, when President Tebboune first arrived in Germany, nothing has been issued about his health, apart from a brief statement posted on the presidency’s Facebook page on 30 November. The post stated: “Following his doctors’ recommendations, the president is spending what remains of his recovery period and will return to the country in few days.”

READ: To preserve a 31-year-old lie, Britain is ready to tarnish Scottish justice 

Algerians have been through the same situation not long ago. Remember former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika – the ailing president who spent years in a wheelchair before being forced out last year? The official line was that he suffered a stroke, paralysing him from the waist down, and had to make multiple trips abroad, particularly to France, seeking medical care. No one knew how bad his stroke was, let alone if he was really running the country from 2013 until his resignation in 2019. So, the guessing game in the country is nothing new, but Algerians are fed up with it.

Tebboune was elected a year ago, in widely protested elections that came on the back of nationwide protests known as the Hirak protest movement. The popular protests first erupted against Bouteflika’s nomination for a fifth term.

Protestors wanted a complete separation from the political and security arrangements the country had known since independence over six decades earlier. Their most important demands were a new constitution, accountability, judicial reform and openly-contested legislative and presidential elections. Apart from largely boycotted presidential elections and a constitutional amendments referendum, nothing else happened; the reasons being: the COVID-19 pandemic and the slow turning government wheel. But the Hirak protests are also partly to blame. As a popular leaderless movement, firstly, it lost its earlier momentum, and secondly, it failed to offer practical alternatives to revamp the country, other than calling for a complete overhaul of all state institutions. In the meantime, the old political elite reinvented themselves, producing a new president and an amended constitution. Tebboune belongs to the same party that led Algeria since independence in 1962.

Algerians caste their ballots at Ahmed Aroua school, under the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) measures, in a referendum on constitutional amendments, on 1 November 2020 in Algiers, Algeria.  [Mousaab Rouibi - Anadolu Agency]

Algerians caste their ballots at Ahmed Aroua school, under the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) measures, in a referendum on constitutional amendments, on 1 November 2020 in Algiers, Algeria.
[Mousaab Rouibi – Anadolu Agency]

Algerians voted in a referendum to amend the constitution and approved the document – however, by less than 25 per cent. This historically low turnout made the new document’s legitimacy a questionable issue, but it was accepted, nevertheless. The new constitution mandates two-term limits for presidents and legislators, and promises new civil liberties on top of other changes. None of this actually represents the Hirak movement’s demands, which explains the low turnout for such an important event. Little campaigning took place due to movement restrictions, including lockdown due to the pandemic.

President Tebboune, himself, was out of the country during the vote, and has not since commented on the outcome. The low voting participation reminds him of the fact that turnout for presidential elections, which he won last December, was estimated to be around 40 per cent – the lowest turnout in Algeria’s history since becoming independent from France in 1962. This can only point to people’s dissatisfaction with the entire system, despite changes made so far.

If Tebboune hoped that his election, on the back of the mass protests, might offer some hope for his countrymen by claiming that his victory is a natural outcome of the Hirak movement, he is wrong. Many of the Hirak figures rejected the presidential poll and called for a boycott, as reflected by the low turnout.

READ: Libya’s bribery has marred political dialogue 

His attempts to portray himself as the guardian of new Algeria, in which the rule of law, constitutional stability, transparency, civil freedoms and accountability are the norm, seem to have failed too. The majority of those who revolted still see him as another face of the old regime against which they revolted in February 2019.

Indeed, many former officials and powerful business figures are either in jail, sentenced or already sought by the judiciary for corruption and abuse of power charges. But Tebboune can hardly claim credit for that, as the rounding up of former officials was already underway when he took office.

The largely peaceful 2019 Hirak movement was a sign of hope that change in Algeria is indeed possible, without the risk of another civil war that ended the first serious attempt to open up the country in the early 1990s. However, the old guard still does not agree. Lack of transparency about the president’s health is a clear reminder that Algeria is still far from democracy and constitutional stability. Yet, the government can now no longer ignore the Hirak movement as if it never happened.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.