President Bouteflika is the Power?

President Bouteflika wants to make the way open for a successor. Algeria's future is uncertain - because no others in the country.

Jens Borchers, ARD Studio in North-West Africa

Algeria's rulers, the demands of the people seem to have heard: In the name of the President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was widely used, that the 82-Year-old will not run for a fifth term. For the middle of April, the scheduled election is for the time being canceled, a transitional government was announced.

A national conference should convene and far-reaching reforms to advise. Then a new election date could be determined.

Algeria has experienced the end of an Era and an uncertain future. A whole Generation of Algerians knew only a President: Abdelaziz Bouteflika. And remains for the time being in office.

has been weakened As Bouteflika in April 2014, for the fourth Time, sworn in, he sat in his wheelchair. A stroke had left him tied up for months, to the hospital bed. Then he came again - visibly weakened.

Already at this point, many: Who ruled Algeria really? The answer in the past weeks, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Algeria: Bouteflika, it was not.

The official face of Power

do not you also wanted the 82-run Year. The President no longer spoke to his people, he existed only as a photo. In the Algerian population and the media, the government is paraphrased anyway usually only with "Le pouvoir" - the Power -. "The Power," a conglomerate of politicians, military and secret service is meant to be.

more or less serious, but very influential business people rich. Bouteflika, however, was for 20 years the official face of Power.

"You're not my President" is written on the banner, which holds a young protester against Bouteflika in Algiers.

stability and power

Already as a teenager, he had gained political experience: In the war of independence against the French he was regarded as a Hero. At the age of 26, he was foreign Minister in 1999 and President. Stability, and power was the goal for Bouteflika. To him the merit was attributed to Algeria after the civil war of the 1990s, somewhat pacified.

About 200,000 people had come in the Fighting between Islamists and government killed. Bouteflika provided a rigid peace by offering the faith warriors impunity, if they laid down their arms. They did it.

Expensive promise

Bouteflika is not geizte with expensive promise, as he took in 2004 for a second term. "In five years, we have brought 1.2 million young unemployed in wage and bread, and in the next five years, we will create a further Million Jobs, alone, for young people," he announced.

As sponge, the government is still in the money. Exports of crude oil and natural gas stranded hundreds of billions into the country. But, writes his first government spokesman and current adversary of Abdelaziz Rahabi, with billions alone a country, let him not be fit for the future:

"That is a reproach to the Lord's Bouteflika: He has not led the country into the Modern age. You only see the backwardness of the social networks, modern technologies, in the schools - we had unfortunately no modern President."