Benflis: “Power vacuum in Algeria is established… and we don’t need the opinion of foreign experts

The president of “Talaiou El Houriyet” or “Vanguard of freedoms” party, Ali Benflis, hosted a press conference during which he harked back among other things to the conduct of the proceedings of the founding Congress of his newly-formed party on Wednesday in Algiers.

Ali Benflis also addressed issues related to what he called “the current power vacuum in Algeria, as well as to the latest visit to Algeria by the head of the French head of State François Hollande and the role of the ANP army in the running of the country’s affairs.

“The power vacuum in Algeria is established and does not need the opinion of a foreign expert», said Benflis in response to French president, François Hollande, who said last Monday in Algiers, that “Bouteflika has all its capabilities to bring his wisdom and judgment to deal with issues and crises”.

He pointed out that “the vacancy of the authority is an internal affair and no importance must be given to Protocol and occasional declarations. He recalled in this sense, that President Bouteflika has not addressed the Algerian people since his famous speech “Tab Djenanou”, made on May 8, 2012 in Sétif in eastern Algeria, adding that  the Council of Ministers met only four times during the year 2014 while in all countries of the world, it meets almost every month.

According to Ali Benflis, “the vacancy at the top of the State is passed on to all the institutions, because the head of State has retrieved, in the context of the constitutional review of 2008, the powers of the head of Government who has become since then Prime Minister”.

Asked about the support of the Chief of staff of the ANP army to the FLN party, Benflis said that “the People’s National Army fulfills perfectly its mission enshrined in article 25 of the Constitution, notably by ensuring the national territory protection and surveillance of the borders.

However, “the ANP army will also have to assume the role of “guarantor” in the event that the political class happens to agree on a Charter of democratic transition. The role of the army will be, in this case, to protect this Charter from the bias of the administration or interference of the mosque and the attempts of fraud and ballot-rigging in the elections”, he underlined.

Furthermore, Ali Benflis defended himself against the voices that described his newly-formed party as a second FLN stressing that “the party’s appellations proposed by the political bureau and the central Committee members were adopted democratically by the delegates and I can’t impose my views”, as he put it.

Benflis’s “Talaiou El Houriyet” new party is meanwhile preparing to file an application for official approval to the Ministry of the Interior and local assemblies. The authorities concerned are bound to respond to this request within a period of 60 days.