Parties: “Algeria state institutions in unprecedented stalemate”

Most of Algeria’s political parties and numerous parliamentarians have asserted that the sidelining of the 2013 finance law represents an unprecedented logjam in the history of the state of Algeria on account of the protracted illness of President Abdellaziz Bouteflika and the non-holding of the council of ministers for 9 months now leading to a stalemate in the various state institutions.

Political party leaders from across the political spectrum have blamed the authorities of aborting all the proposed draft-laws causing the Parliament to be plunged into a “damaging and coercive recess” for an unspecified period.

 MP Larbi Benkhalfa hit out against this forced standstill saying that the two houses of Parliament had adopted only a trickle of draft-laws since December 2012.

He added that 8 important draft-laws had been on the back-burner for the past 9 months because of the non-holding of the council of ministers meeting which is usually chaired by the head of state himself.

 Larbi Benkhalfa further accused the authorities of issuing mendacious statements to deceive the public opinion about the management of the medical file of ailing President Abdellaziz Bouteflika.

 He argued that all what was said by the authorities about President Bouteflika’s illness was untrue, stressing that the patent evidence was his non-return to the political scene up to the present day.

 He went on to say that all what was proclaimed about the so-called instructions by President Bouteflika to Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal about the speedy finalization of the 2013 finance complementary law were “sheer lies” aimed at allowing the authorities to play for time in order to face up to any unexpected contingency.

 For his part, another MP belonging to the “Green Algeria” alliance, Naâmane Laouer,  accused the government and those parties backing the ruling establishment of being at the origin of this current power vacuum and stalemate which have sown confusion and uncertainty among wide segments of the Algerian population by delaying the adoption of major draft laws through parliament as part of the principles of good governance and genuine democratic practice