Following recent protests in Algeria, the country’s president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, has announced his intention to drop out of the presidential race, retiring his initial intention to seek a shorter fifth term.
Bouteflika, who has been the Algerian President for 20 years, has rarely been seen in the country since he suffered a stroke in 2013. “He has, in fact, not spoken publicly to Algerians for seven years which has led some of his opponents cynically call him “the invisible president,” reports Harold Acemah for the Daily Monitor.
In a statement obtained by Al-Jazeera, and released by the Associated Press Service on Monday, Bouteflika stated that the elections will come after a national conference on political and constitutional reform set to hold at the end of 2019.
“There will be no presidential election on April 18,” Bouteflika said in reference to the scheduled date of the vote, adding he was responding to a “pressing demand that you [the people] have been numerous to make.”
No new date has been set for the elections, although Bouteflika’s statement revealed a cabinet shuffle may be happening soon.
The 81-year-old Algerian President, who has been confined to a wheelchair since 2013, did not give any information concerning whether or not he intends to step aside before the new election date, a date he has still not announced.
The BBC reports: “There will be no fifth term,” Mr Bouteflika was quoted as saying in a statement. “There was never any question of it for me. Given my state of health and age, my last duty towards the Algerian people was always contributing to the foundation of a new Republic.”
While Bouteflika’s decision to step aside has been met with widespread celebration, there is still an air of uncertainty in the country as the people are unsure of when they will eventually head to the polls to elect a new leader.
Speculations have been made as to the motive behind Bouteflika’s decision, with some, seeing it as a ploy by the president to extend his tenure until he can handpick a suitable replacement, himself.
With the announcement of the delay in elections, thousands of enraged citizens reportedly took to the streets, a majority of them students, to protest against the president’s indefinite postponement of the poll that would have ushered in a new president.
Gathering at the Grande Poste D’Alger Square in the nation’s capital of Algiers, protesters at the scene chanted: “The students are resisting the extension of the fourth mandate.”
Other cities in the country where protests took place include the Mediterranean port of Bejaia, where a strike reportedly took place among workers, halting economic activities in the area.
A nationwide protest is scheduled for Friday.
