Abdelaziz Bouteflika

Meanwhile Hirak seems as rudderless as during its early days when Facebook groups first started calling disaffected Algerians onto the streets and before they forced President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and his clan to abandon the attempt to obtain a fifth term of office for the infirm raïs...

This has reflected suspicions at deals done by 'oligarch' businessmen like Ayoub Aissiou who was linked to the now imprisoned former premier Ahmed Ouyahia and ex-President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's brother Saïd (AC Vol 60 No 13 Rounding up unusual suspects)...

In the months since February security force décideurs have been toppled along with ex-President Abdelaziz Bouteflika his omnipresent brother Saïd Bouteflika four-time premier Ahmed Ouyahia and a number of crony business kingpins yet Gaïd Salah has not only retained control of the army but has been calling the shots within the interim government and an empowered judiciary (AC Vol 60 No 7 Protests flush out the old guard & Vol 60 No 13 Rounding up unusual suspects)...

Once four-time premier Ahmed Ouyahia was seen as a possible successor to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika...

Over the 20 years before President Abdelaziz Bouteflika resigned on 2 April Algeria-watchers took to comparing the political outlook to making mayonnaise...

People power on a scale not seen in 30 years forced elderly and infirm President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to agree not to stand for a fifth term of office...

This flexibility and agility of the protestors has inspired the fast-growing movement in Algeria which demands the departure of four-term President Abdelaziz Bouteflika...

In Algeria where the 81-year-old and incapacitated President Abdelaziz Bouteflika will probably stand for and win re-election in April le pouvoir has stifled opposition with a mix of largesse from some of Africa's biggest foreign reserves and the fist of the deep security state...

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's quiet mid-January visit to his cardiologist in Grenoble reminded Algerians that for all the country's economic and social problems politics remains dominated by one issue: the health of the 81-year-old raïs...

This was Abdelaziz Bouteflika's rallying call to mark this year's 64th anniversary but what all but the most blinkered Algerians saw at the formal wreath-laying at El Alia Cemetery was a wheelchair-bound and apparently extremely infirm octogenarian...

'I do not see anybody apart from the current leader of another party of the majority… who could fill Abdelaziz Bouteflika's chair ' said Ziari an FLN politburo member arguing that the ruling party was in 'disrepair' and lacked any credible alternatives to the incumbent...

Only in Algeria could a surge in calls for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to stand for a fifth term in the 2019 presidential election trigger speculation that the 81-year-old raïs's health is even worse than previously thought and that according to the Algiers rumour mill he may even be dead (AC Vol 59 No 1 Cold war and glacial change)...