Ahmed Ouyahia Weeds Out Old Guard Of RND Party

The new National Council of the National Democratic Rally (RND) elected of late by the Extraordinary Congress is composed of 421 members. The reading its new make-up shows the absence of names of several senior executives who had been part of all national councils of the RND party since its creation in 1997.

The drop outs include among other personalities like Cherif Rahmani, the former Minister of Environment and Town Planning, General Mohamed Betchine, former Education Minister Boubekeur Benbouzid, former Minister of Youth and Sports, Mouldi Aïssaoui, and former chairman of the parliamentary group of the RND, Nourredine Terbak.

The National Council now doesn’t include members who had spearheaded the protest movement aimed at calling into question the management of Ahmed Ouyahia of the party’s affairs and who had demanded the postponement of the RND Congress via a relevant request to the Council of State but to no avail.

This concerns notably the ousting of Tayeb Zitouni, the former Mayor of Algiers, Nouria Hafsi, President of the National Union of Algerian Women (UNFA), former MPs, like Mustapha Yahi from Batna, Mohamed Zoghbi from Setif, Kacem Kebir from Tindouf and Hitta Amara who represented the  Algerian community settled abroad.

If the delegates to the extraordinary congress did not elect these officials to the National Council, Ahmed Ouyahia was himself entitled to do so in his capacity as Secretary General, in accordance with the party’s statutes that allow him to appoint 10% of the composition of the national council but he finally decided otherwise obviously for strategic reasons.

This implies that their departure is wanted by him. This new configuration of the National Council of the RND fully empowers Ahmed Ouyahia, who now has elbow room to conduct all appointments and all designations. 

Ouhahia now wields more power as he was elected at the helm of the RND party by secret ballot and with 1513 votes out of 1600, against only 21 votes for his lone rival, Belkacem Mellah. 

“No one will henceforward make him sustain any untoward pressure within the party and nobody can destabilize him,” says a member of the National Council, adding that Ahmed “Ouyahia can now freely constitute unopposed electoral lists for the upcoming local and legislative, but he will mostly be a candidate for the 2019 presidential polls without anyone challenging his candidacy.”