As more protests are planned, Algeria's ruling elite plays for time
started his campaign for a fifth term as Algeria’s president by promising not to finish it. The ailing ruler, who turned 82 this month, is not even in the country. An associate filed the papers for his candidacy while Mr Bouteflika lay in a hospital bed in Geneva. For two weeks Algerians have been protesting against his decision to run. The largest rally, on March 1st, drew tens of thousands of people.
Mr Bouteflika has ruled Algeria since 1999. He helped end the gruesome civil war against Islamists that killed some 200,000 Algerians in the 1990s. His party, the National Liberation Front , led the struggle for independence from France a half-century earlier. But appeals to the past offer little legitimacy in a country where the median age is 28. Most of Algeria’s 42m citizens have no real memory of the civil war, let alone the French occupation.
These protests seem to have surprised the regime. Security forces have so far applied a light touch. Videos from the protest on March 1st showed demonstrators mingling with police. Powerful figures have hinted that the regime’s patience is limited, though. Ahmed Gaid Salah, the army chief, accused the protesters of trying to drag Algeria back to the days of civil war. “In Syria, protests began with flowers and ended with blood,” warned Ahmed Ouyahia, the prime minister.
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