Mute leadership power struggle…FIS wants a Saint-Egidio remake

Former number two in command of the dissolved FIS party Ali Benhadj has been barred by the authorities from taking part in the so-called “conference of democratic change” in Algiers leaving his seat for Ali Djeddi who took the floor on his behalf to express the disbanded party leadership’s views on the country’s political situation.

The conference also witnessed the participation of former head of government, Mouloud Hamrouche, whose speech was attentively followed by those in attendance despite the fact that this political figure stemmed from the ruling political establishment as he held in the past a senior position of responsibility.

This conference organized at the Mazafran hotel west of Algiers saw the participation of a host of opposition leaders representing several parties including the RCD, the FFS, the disbanded FIS as well as prominent figures from the “democratic transition alliance.”

Former FIS party leaders like Abdelkader Boukhemkhem took the opportunity to rebound on the national political scene by floating the pervasive idea of the rehabilitation of the now dissolved FIS party, an idea utterly ruled out up to now by the higher authorities of the country.

The Islamist FIS leaders in disgrace because of the tragic events which gripped Algeria in the nineties are strenuously striving to get exonerated in the eyes of the public opinion by giving the impression that the Mazafran conference was seemingly a remake of the 1995 Saint-Egidio conference which brought together a number of Algerian opposition leaders.

Such a conference was staged under dubious foreign auspices during Algeria’s national tragedy spawned by the heinous scourge of terrorism.