Ali Benflis: “I’ll be candidate for 2014 Presidential polls even if Bouteflika makes election bid”

The former justice Minister, Ali Benflis, has announced his candidacy for the 2014 Presidential polls stressing that it doesn’t matter for him if incumbent President AbdellazizBouteflika will be a candidate or not.

Mr Benflis’s statement was conveyed by former communication minister and now political consultant, AbdellazizRehabi to Echorouk.

Such a declaration about Benflis’s projected presidential election candidacy was made during a recent encounter held between the two men in upper Algiers.

MrRehabi said that Mr Ali Benflis had told him that he was intent on standing as a candidate for the 2014 Presidential polls, adding that the latter didn’t care about the identity of the other candidates even  if ailing President AbdellazizBouteflika decides to run for a fourth consecutive mandate.

Mr Rehabi also quoted Ali Benflis as saying that he was confident that the next Presidential polls wouldn’t be the same as the previous ones notably the 2004 election during which he was defeated byBouteflika who was then regarded as the “consensus candidate”.

Benflis also affirmed that he’d preferred to withdraw willingly from the political scene since the year 2004 after being put on the black list by the Presidential circles just in the wake of President Bouteflika’s coming to power again for a second mandate at the helm of the country.

Ali Benflis is now banking on an upsurge of broad-based popular support from disillusioned segments of the population as well as from wide sections of FLN party militants wary of the current party leadership, to tip the balance in his favour during the upcoming Presidential electoral contest.

According to AbdellazizRehabi, Mr Ali Benflis is expected to announce officially his candidacy during a press conference slated for early November.