Hanoune urges Bouteflika to start reforms to avoid foreign intervention

Leader of the Labour Party, Louisa Hanoune has slammed the three-party alliance in power, including, Secretary General of the National Liberation Front (FLN) Abdelaziz Belkhadem, who qualified reforms being claimed by the political class as “a leap into the unknown”. She further urged President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to disclose the set of reforms he already talked about last March 19.In a press conference held at the Labour Party’s headquarters in Algiers, M.Hanoune has criticized statements made, a couple of days ago, by the SG of FLN, without mentioning his name so far, in which he rejected demands of dissolving the National People’s Assembly (the lower house of the Parliament).Head of the Labour Party further added that the APN must be dissolved, because this institution is not committed to its controlling role and it is no more representative. In this regard, M.Hanoune said “the current Parliament is not democratic; it was resulted by the crisis of the nineties,” adding: “The three-party alliance talk about amending the current constitution through the current Parliament which is impossible…We have to open a deep dialogue, within the society, to decide on the nature of the political system that should be carried on.”She said that the establishment of a Constitutional Council by President of the Republic would permit, as priority, appointing a cabinet, determining prerogatives of President and protecting the national sovereignty.On another side, M.Hanoune has warned of echoes rejecting reforms, while considering that the wind of change that shakes the Arab region would not blow in Algeria. In this context, SG of the Labour Party stressed that “Credible reforms have to be initiated to prevent the country any foreign intervention,” adding “ what’s happening in Libya falls in the frame of efforts of the United States aiming at installing a headquarters to AFRICOM in the region.”