Abdallah Djaballah: “Closed political arena and utopian democracy!”

Opposition leader Abdallah Djaballah has said that he has refused to negotiate with the power in place in order to be able to regain control over the Islah movement in exchange for his participation in the April 9th presidential polls in Algeria.

•  Djaballah declined to identify those parties which tried to persuade him to take part in the upcoming election or to give details about such a mediation. 
• He affirmed that he preferred to adhere to the ongoing unification efforts undertaken by the historic Nahda movement in order to be able to live up to the expectations of his supporters.
•  The former El Islah leader evoked, to this effect, the common conviction to bring together and to unify the ranks of the historic Nahda movement. 

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• Djaballah firmly rejected the allegations by certain quarters accusing him of dictatorial and selfish practices in decision-making within the Nahda and later the Islah movement. He deplored the fact that the national press indulged in such a lingering polemics without knowing the ins and outs of the issue.
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• Djaballah said that he decided not to campaign to call for an outright boycott of the polls, because for him, the upcoming presidential election is a “non-event” as the dice is already cast, as he put it. 
• He asserted that the election turn-out would certainly be even lower than that recorded in the latest legislative polls (36%).
•  Djaballah added that “coercive voting was worthless and discredited the elections”.