Murkiness surrounding constitution revamping and fourth presidential mandate

The President of the Republic, Abdellaziz Bouteflika, chaired on Monday his second council of Ministers’ meeting of the year 2013 following that of last September 29th but there was no alteration in the protocol as the head of state remained seated and didn’t stand up throughout the meeting.

President Bouteflika confined himself to signing the 2014 law of finance and stuck to the 8 items on the council’s agenda as previously mapped out by the general secretariat of the government.

TV Cameras showed President Bouteflika always sitting and was not at all shown walking which is tangible evidence that he’s still very far from enjoying a good health condition.

During the meeting, President Bouteflika didn’t neither raise the lingering question of the constitutional revision nor the outstanding issue of his projected fourth election bid, as widely clamoured by Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal during his working visits of inspection to manifold provinces of the country over the past few months.

All these observations point to the murky and fuzzy situation now shrouding the national political scene especially with regard to the 2014 presidential election and whether incumbent President Bouteflika’s health condition will allow him after all to vie for a fourth straight presidential term. This question is still anybody’s guess.