Belayat to Echorouk: 'Dominant FLN Party to claim Premiership in next Government with RND backing'

A senior member of the FLN Politbureau Mr Abderrahmane Belayat has told Echorouk that the FLN Party, the large winner of last Thursday’s legislative polls in Algeria will cling to the post of Prime Minister in the next government and to other important ministerial portfolios in a close alliance with the RND Party which ranked second in the final vote tally.

• Mr Abderrahmane Belayat also indicated that the next FLN-dominated government could well be extended to include the participation of other political parties notably from the Islamist “Green Alliance” if the latter duly accepted the proposal to join this post-election executive body.

• He however didn’t rule out the possibility of seeing RND Secretary General Ahmed Ouyahia again at the helm of the next government but the final decision on the matter, he said, rests solely with the Head of State Mr Abdelaziz Bouteflika himself who is alone entitled to name the political figure deemed as the most suitable for such a leading post.

• Meanwhile, Algeria’s Islamists are still reeling from a stinging setback in May 10th legislative polls which saw the ruling FLN party came out on top, resisting the Arab Spring’s tide of sweeping change.

• The authorities argued that the results showed the Algerians’ desire for stability, at a time when regime change was bringing chaos to other countries, and outright rejection of Islamism, whose rise 20 years ago led to most tragic events.

• President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s National Liberation Front (FLN) won 220 out of 462 seats up for grabs in Thursday’s legislative elections, improving on its share in the outgoing national popular assembly.

• The seven Islamist parties contesting the polls could only manage a combined 59 seats, a major setback after their predictions of a resounding victory during the election campaign.

• The National Rally for Democracy (RND) of Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia, a nationalist party loyal to President Bouteflika, came second with 68 seats, compared to 62 in the outgoing house.

• While the results largely maintain the status quo, one notable change was the number of elected women, which rose to 145 from seven in the outgoing national popular assembly following the introduction of quotas.

• Algeria’s outgoing governing coalition included the FLN, the RND and the lamest of the legal Islamist parties, the Movement of Society for Peace.

• Friday’s provisional results, which nave yet to be confirmed by the constitutional council, mean the FLN and the RND could form a majority without the support of the Islamists.

• “We’d already experienced Islamism, nobody has forgotten this in Algeria… Voters were looking for security and stability,” Political analyst Nourredine Akiki emphasized.

• Green Algeria, a three-party Islamist alliance, garnered a paltry 48 seats and charged widespread fraud.

• It warned it would take unspecified measures in protest.

• In the wake of the popular revolts that became known as the Arab Spring, moderate Islamist parties recorded electoral victories in Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco.

• Prime Minister Ouyahia recently argued in a campaign rally that the Arab Spring was hardly an attractive scenario, calling it a “plague” that had resulted in “the colonisation of Iraq, the destruction of Libya, the partition of Sudan and the weakening of Egypt.”