Benflis and Makri at odds over common stance ahead of presidential polls

Well – informed sources told Echorouk that the former FLN party Secretary General and potential candidate for the 2014 presidential elections, Ali Benflis and the leader of the Movement for the Society of Peace (MSP), Abderraza Makri, met on Tuesday in Algiers to examine ways and means of thrashing out a common strategy in relation to the upcoming presidential electoral contest but the encounter eventually failed to produce any positive breakthrough.

The meeting was the second of the like between the 2 men and came as part of a series of consultations initiated by the MSP leader with other political stalwarts in an attempt to secure a broad – based agreement on the selection of a consensual opposition political figurehead likely to carry the day during the 2014 presidential polls in the face of the current authorities’ chosen candidate which is still to be known.

Abderrazak Makri told Echorouk, to this effect, that the MSP Movement had not as yet singled out any preferred candidate adding that no backing was officially extended to Ali Benflis by the Movement in the latter’s projectedpresidential election bid.

He underlined that a second round of in-depth consultations was on schedule to allow the MSP Movement to clear the air and gauge the national political arena and its evolution before adopting a final stand on the presidential election file.

The MSP leader also pointed out that the political scene was currently fuzzy and intricate owing to the lingering diverging views and the vested interests harboured by various political trends in connection with the2014 presidential polls.