The president resigns and corrupt businessman falls in Algeria

the Situation in Algeria becomes increasingly loaded. Fredagsdemonstrationerna in the capital city of Algiers has been going on for almost two months is growing each week.

Recently, four days ago, was closer to a million people out there on the wide boulevards in the Algae. The protesters are demanding that the government resigns and a ”second algerian republic,” replacing the one which was formed in 1962, when Algeria broke away from France.

obtaining the results. On Tuesday, president Abdelaziz Bouteflika that he depart immediately.

president Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria in the year 2017. Photo: Sidali Djarboub/AP

admittedly, It is a retreat compared to how it sounded for just a month ago, when Bouteflika announced that he intended to stand for a fifth term, in violation of the constitution. The president was then at a private hospital in Switzerland for treatment of the complications of the massive stroke he suffered in 2013.

The last few days a number of leading businessmen that included in the circle surrounding Bouteflika either been charged or had their passports confiscated. The most influential of them is Ali Haddad, who until recently was the head of the Algerian employers ' and counted as one of the country's richest men. The 54-year-old Haddad was arrested at the end of last week when he tried to cross the border to Tunisia.

in Algeria, banned all private air traffic to and from the country. The motive for the decision is according to the assessors that the authorities want to stop the president's long-standing treaty in the affärseliten, the military and the maktpartiet the FLN from escaping the country.

the Pattern feels no one from the convulsions that marked the end of the envåldshärskarna Zine Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt in connection with the ”arab spring” eight years ago. As people's anger grows try men of power to calm down the emotions by making concessions.

But there is no evidence to suggest that the protesters in Algeria are content with the measures.

with the 23-year-old Soumia Douifi, poet, and university students in Algiers who participated in the protests from the beginning.

Soumia Douifi. Photo: private

Soumia Douifi is in many ways a typical representative of the disaffected algerians. She is one of many young - 45 percent of Algeria's nearly 42 million inhabitants are under 25 (the corresponding figure in Sweden is 28 percent). She is well educated and she has no ties to the rear with the guerrilla and liberation movement who fought for Algeria's freedom during the 1950s and early 60's. She can hardly remember even the bloody years around the last turn of the century, when the militant islamists within the movement, the GIA carried out deadly attacks against algerian villages.

Soumia Doufi nothing but contempt to spare for the old men - get in the circle around Bouteflika is under 75 years of age - who is now trying to cling to power.

– The changes that policy makers talked about is nothing more than outwork. That the president resigns, and a few corrupt businessmen prosecuted, it changes nothing basically, "says Soumia Douifi and continues:

" We are marching in the streets in Algiers and in other cities, we want reforms that shakes the whole system, which eliminates corruption, and which offers more of the participation of ordinary algerians.

" I can't here and now come up with a name for a new president. But I know for sure that the person should be elected by citizens in free and fair elections, not appointed behind the scenes, " says Soumia Douifi.

this rings she enters the dilemma for the loose-knit protest movement that informed the last few months: they want change at any price, but they do not know who will implement it.

We can expect continued protests and more rapid scenförändringar in Algeria in the near future.

also Read: Algeria's president resigns on april 28