ALGIERS, March 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Thousands protested across Algeria on Tuesday, demanding immediate political changes a day after ailing President Abelaziz Bouteflika abandoned his bid for a fifth term in power but stopped short of stepping down.
Huge crowds gathered in several cities and Ennahar TV reported workers began a strike that paralyzed operations at the Mediterranean port at Bajaia.
Bouteflika, 82, bowed to weeks of mass demonstrations against his 20-year rule on Monday and promised a transition to a new leadership. But he postponed elections scheduled for April, meaning he will likely remain in power for some time.
Veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi and protest groups will join a conference planning Algeria’s future, government and political sources said.
Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister and U.N. special envoy, is expected to chair the conference that will oversee the transition, draft a new constitution and set the date for elections, a government source said.
Crowds who came back onto the streets on Tuesday demanded quicker action.
“The whole system must disappear immediately. Our battle will continue,” 25-year-old student Noureddine Habi said in central Algiers as others chanted: “We want this system to go”.
Algerians have grown tired of the ailing leader and other veterans of the 1954-1962 war of independence against France who have dominated a country with high unemployment, poor services and rampant corruption despite its oil and gas.
More than a quarter of Algerians under 30 are unemployed.
Algeria’s new deputy prime minister said Boutiflika’s decision was the most important turning point in since independence from France in 1962.
Speaking to the Monte Carlo Doualiya radio station, Ramtan Lamamra said: “President Bouteflika has made a historic decision; I hope the Algerian people will be comforted by it.”
“This is the most important development since Algeria secured its independence in 1962,” Lamamra said of Bouteflika’s decision.
Lamamra, who also now holds the post of foreign minister, went on to assert: “The elections will be free; they will be overseen by an independent committee, members of which will be appointed later.”
He added: “As soon as the new government is ready, we will open dialogue with Algerian youth — and other political forces — at a national conference, where we can decide on a date for the election.”
According to Lamamra, delegates at the planned national conference “will then help draft a new constitution for a second republic and a new political system”.
Algerian opposition parties, he stressed, would also have a voice at the conference “since the country needs feedback from everyone”.
Last month, Algeria’s ruling National Liberation Front nominated the 82-year-old Bouteflika — who has ruled Algeria since 1999 — to run for a fifth term in office.
The move sparked three weeks of protests in several parts of the country, including capital Algiers, against Bouteflika’s hope of securing a fifth presidential term.
Opposition figures had consistently urged the aging president, who in 2013 underwent treatment for a blood clot in the brain, to refrain from contesting the April poll. — NNN-AGENCIES