Ahmed Ouyahia

Tipped for Prime Minister again is Ahmed Ouyahia although his enemies would like him to be replaced by a grandee from the revived Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) - the biggest party in the Assemblée Populaire Nationale (APN) now back with Bouteflika after its flirtation with the independent-minded Benflis...

Islah is the third largest party in parliament behind the divided FLN and Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia's pro-Boutef Rassemblement National Démocratique (RND)...

Premier Ahmed Ouyahia will not stand while Bouteflika looks likely to win but will wait for 2009...

Yet as Boutef appointed RND leader Ahmed Ouyahia to replace Benflis as Premier it seems it might be revived as a major force attacking its pro-regime rivals in the FLN...

Instead he opted for a trusted apparatchik close to the army Ahmed Ouyahia leader of the Rassemblement National Démocratique (RND) which flourished in the late 1990s with the backing of 'eradicationist' officers...

The poor showing of the regime-created Rassemblement National Démocratique sank leader Ahmed Ouyahia's chances of succeeding Bouteflika in 2004 even though military power-brokers support him...

The RND leader and Minister of State for Justice Ahmed Ouyahia an unpopular 'eradicationist' former Premier stood down as RND head: the little known Abdelkader Malki is interim leader...

Bouteflika's cultivation of President George 'Dubya' Bush as an ally in the 'war against terrorism' could change this but the State Department's human-rights sensitivities led Justice Minister Ahmed Ouyahia who is also leader of the Rassemblement National Démocratique to attack US 'double standards' on 10 March...

It follows months of shuttling by Organisation of African Unity and United States' mediators headed by Algerian State Minister of Justice Ahmed Ouyahia (recently replaced by Africa Minister Abdelkadir Messahel) and former US National Security Council Director Anthony Lake (AC Vol 41 No 13) in a close Algiers-Washington collaboration...

Once Premier and now Minister of State for Justice the ubiquitous Ahmed Ouyahia took a leading role in brokering the truce between Eritrea and Ethiopia...