Belayat: “I don’t recognize Saadani and Bouteflika is FLN party’s President”

The FLN party coordinator, Abderrahmane Belayat, has expressed his utter rejection of Amar Saadani as new party Secretary General saying that Thursday’s central committee meeting held at the conference hall of the Aurassi hotel on the heights of Algiers is null and void.

Taking the floor during a press conference Thursday afternoon in upper Algiers, Mr Belayat said bluntly that Saadani’s designation as new Secretary General of the FLN party was entirely illegal as it is totally contrary to the party’s ethics and statutes.

He also indicated that Thursday’s central committee meeting organized by the opposing Boumahdi wing at the Aurassi hotel was null and void as it was previously been declared not in conformity with the party’s statutes by the state council in its ruling issued late yesterday.

Abderrahmane Belayat, warned that the current circumstances surrounding the party “do not encourage electing a secretary-general who enjoys the necessary legitimacy.” He advised against holding another session of the Central Committee, “which may deepen the rift within the party, as both camps are still not ready to compromise.”

Nevertheless, his warning fell on deaf ears, for the Ministry of Interior granted permission to Ahmed Boumahdi’s group to hold the session.

This caused a legal problem for the FLN’s political bureau, headed by Belayat, and for the FLN Corrective Movement headed by its general coordinator, Abdul Karim Abada, who clung to Article 9 of the party’s protocol, stipulating that the eldest member of the political office shall be entitled to call for the session to be held.

Moreover, the enemy brothers not only disagreed on who will succeed Abdellaziz Belkhadem as the party’s secretary-general, who failed to win a vote of confidence during the January session.

While Boumahdi’s group was demanding that the session be held in the Aurassi Hotel, Belayat’s group — backed by Abada’s movement — insists on holding it in Hotel Er-Riadh.

Although President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is the FLN’s honorary head, he did not issue any official decision about the antagonistic situation within the party. Nevertheless, the acceleration of events, and the interference of the Ministry of Interior between the FLN’s two rival camps suggested that the president was “behind” these measures.