Diplomatic Missions Revive “Internecine Conflict” In Algerian Parliament

The dispute has sparked off within the parliament again, but this time not between the opposition and loyalists, but among the deputies of the pro- government parties, led by the MPs belonging to the FLN and RND parties.
According to Echorouk’s sources, the ongoing dispute is due to the specific article on how to calculate representation in the Council’s structures and diplomatic missions.
The bitter controversy broke out at the meeting of the heads of the parliamentary groups of the presidential majority last Tuesday, which was devoted to studying matters pertaining to the stalemate in the Council which occurred on the occasion of the acrimonious discussion of the draft rules of procedure.
The parliamentary majority then failed to reach an agreement on the specific article on how to calculate representation in structures, because of its insistence on how to calculate proportional representation.
This is the demand that confronted the deputies of the FLN and those of the Al Amal -Algeria, who stressed the need to maintain the previous method of counting MPs without any exclusion.

However, the point that formed the essence of the dispute between the FLN and the RND parties is the issue of diplomatic missions.

The internal law of the Council, which is in dispute, is related to “the formation and dispatch of parliamentary delegations as well as the reception of foreign parliamentary delegations in coordination between the President of the National People’s Assembly and the Chairman of the Committee and the heads of parliamentary groups,”.

But the President of the National People’s Assembly Mr. Said Bouhadja intervened to alter the wording of the relevant law which became as: “The formation and dispatch of foreign parliamentary delegations by the President of the National People’s Assembly by consulting the Chairman of the Committee and the heads of the parliamentary groups”.

As a result, this alteration angered the FLN MPs, prompting them to accuse Said Bouhadja of dealing a serious blow to the “achievements” of the FLN party, secured in 1997, arguing that such an “untoward” change will serve the RND more than the FLN.