Bouteflika postpones cabinet meetings amid questions

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s decision to postpone his meeting with ministers raised questions about his health condition once again.

Abdelali Rezaki believes that President Bouteflika postponed the meeting which was supposed to be held on Wednesday because he wanted to sound the poll of the public opinion and the reaction of his opponents.

Senior member at the Algeria Nahda party Mohamed Hedibi said the culture of running the State is absent in the Algerian Republic 50 years after the independence. “We have to look for a mechanism to know how to hold a meeting in the formal way,” he told Echorouk.

He believes that Algeria officially entered a serious phase in terms of its institutions management and carelessness about values and traditions. Parliament which represents the State’s legislative power was blocked as well as the judicial power. “It is time now to block the executive power by blocking the cabinet meeting which is considered as the political mechanism No 1 in the country’s affairs management.”

“That turns the management of the State into a big question mark while no political authority is held responsible for that,” he added.

Leader of the Algeria Jil Djedid party Djilali Sofiane says the banning of the meeting clearly shows that Algeria entered the phase of institutions dismantling.

“All the Algerian State’s institutions have been paralyzed and frozen because of Bouteflika’s illness,” he added.

He believes that the State’s credibility is linked to an “ill” man and hopes that President Bouteflika will resign after he had been in power for more than 14 years.