Algeria: “Islamists toss the towel”

In view of the latest baffling upturns in Algeria’s political situation marked by murky divisive maneuvers used at will by the power establishment, the Islamist parties are losing hope to be able to snatch the top rostrum during the forthcoming Presidential election slated for April 17th 2014.

According to MSP leader Abderrazak Makri, the Islamist movement is not willing now to engage in the upcoming electoral contest by filing just one single candidate as they had surmised before.

He argued that the most important thing to do now for the Islamist trend was to bring together all the parties irrespective of their ideological persuasions with a view to pondering how best to bail the country out of its acute crisis, as he put it.

Mr Abderrazak Makri told Echorouk that this revised stance was the outcome of the country’s dismal situation marked by what he called anarchy, corruption practices and a couldn’t care-less-attitude in blatant violation of the laws and regulations at every level of authority and at societal level as well.

For his part, Lakhdar Benkhalfa, an MP representing the Justice and Development party, underlined that the Islamists’ projected move to engage in the 2014 presidential polls with a single consensual candidate had seemingly fizzled out owing to the current adverse polical juncture in the country.

Mr Benkhalfa however expressed hope that the political situation would be altered for the better shortly in order to endow the opposition parties with better chances allowing them to make a good showing during the upcoming presidential elections, barring any fraud or ballot-rigging.