ALGERIA/FILE: Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika will run in April's election, the government said

Record ID: 574608

  • Title: ALGERIA/FILE: Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika will run in April's election, the government said
  • Date: 23rd February 2014
  • Summary: ORAN, ALGERIA (FEBRUARY 22, 2014) (REUTERS) ALGERIAN PRIME MINISTER ABDELMALEK SELLAL ENTERING NEWS CONFERENCE SELLAL TAKING A SEAT VARIOUS OF PRESS WIDE OF NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (French) ALGERIAN PRIME MINISTER, ABDELMALEK SELLAL, SAYING: "Mr. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, President of Algeria, will stand as candidate for the presidential elections of April 17th. He has enough time until the 3rd of March, to provide the necessary legal documents and signatures. You've spoken about the condition of his health; I have already said clearly that he enjoys all his intellectual capacities. He has all the necessary experience to rule over the country." NEWS CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS
  • Embargoed: 10th March 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom, Algeria
  • City:
  • Country: United Kingdom Algeria
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA9VJICMJX0SQY9BN0GIJBH535N
  • Story Text: Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the ageing independence veteran who suffered a stroke last year, will run in April's election, the government said on Saturday (February 22), in a vote likely to hand him a fourth term in power.
    Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal's announcement appeared to end months of speculation over Bouteflika's future after his trips to Paris for treatment in the last year intensified talk of a succession after his 15 years in office.
    Sellal said Bouteflika, who opponents believe is still too frail to govern, had decided to run and state news agency reported that he had already formally registered his candidacy.

    ""Mr. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, President of Algeria, will stand as candidate for the presidential elections of April 17th. He has enough time until the 3rd of March, to provide the necessary legal documents and signatures," Sellal said at event in the city of Oran.
    Since his stroke first put him in a Paris clinic last year, there was speculation about whether Bouteflika was healthy enough to run for re-election. A second visit to Paris in January for checkups prompted another round of succession talk.

    "He enjoys all his intellectual capacities. He has all the necessary experience to rule over the country," Sellal also said.
    The president himself did not appear. But state news agency APS said he had registered his candidacy with the interior ministry, 10 days before the March 4 deadline to do so.
    A political transition in the major energy supplier to Europe would have come at a sensitive time with neighbours Egypt and Libya still deep in turmoil three years after popular uprisings ousted their veteran rulers.
    Backed by the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) party, unions and other FLN allies, Bouteflika, 76, is almost sure to be re-elected, with opposition candidates unlikely to offer a serious challenge.
    Loyalists see Bouteflika as the man who gave Algeria peace and economic stability after a civil war with Islamists in the 1990s that killed about 200,000 people. Many Algerians are wary of any upheaval after that bloody experience.
    But critics say Bouteflika, rarely seen in public since he returned from France, should let a new generation to take over.
    In the short term, a Bouteflika mandate means stability for a partner in a U.S.-led campaign against Islamist militants in a region still struggling with unrest after revolts in other North African nations.
    But Algeria also needs serious economic reform to attract more investment in its flagging oil and gas sector and to reduce restrictions on non-oil investment in an economy shaking off years of centralised control.
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