Algeria Parliament to vote on third presidential term amid anger and praise

Algeria's parliament will vote Wednesday on a constitutional amendments draft bill, which would allow President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to stand for a third term. The changes sparked anger among opposition parties while the president’s allies are supporting his re-election.

• Bouteflika, reaching the end of his second and final term changed article 74 related to office mandate to put no limit for a president to be re-elected.
• The new constitution allows Bouteflika to run for a third term in the presidential elections scheduled in spring 2009.
• The president’s supporting parties have an absolute majority in Parliament.
• The Presidential Alliance represented in the National Liberation Front (FLN), the National Rally for Democracy (RND) and the Movement for Peace and Society (MSP) showed support to the third term.
•  The FLN’s leader Abdelaziz Belkhadem said the planned amendment was necessary “to deepen the practice of democracy, and clarify relations between institutions and the various power centres.
• Miloud Chorfi, the RND’s representative described the constitutional amendment draft bill as the “decisive historical turning point” in Algeria’s president. “It embodies deep signification and will allow deepening the Algerian democratic experience,” he said.
• The MSP showed its support for the constitutional changes “to ingrain the senses of freedoms, democracy and to reinforce national values,” said the party’s spokesman Abdelaziz Belkaid.
• The labour party led by Louisa Hanoune backed the re-election of Bouteflika saying “the amendments do not contradict the party’s positions neither did it contradict the republic’s unity and continuity.”
• Bouteflika announced the amendments on October 29 saying it would promote women’s rights.”
• He said the amendment would “allow people to exercise their legitimate right to choose those who govern them and renew their confidence in them in all sovereignty.”
• On the other hand, opposition parties see the constitutional changes as a trick to stay in power.
• The Rally for Culture and Democracy (RND) said Bouteflika wanted to become a “president for life” and that he was making “slaves of all Algerians”.
• The Socialist Forces Front (FFS) described the initiative as a strategy of “moral and political regression”.