“Political parties in power set to coopt a national figure to anticipate political future”

The democratic coalition made up of the FLN, RND, TAJ and the Algerian Popular Movement APM have reportedly engaged in broad-based consultations on the cooptation of a national personality who will be entrusted with managing the evolving situation in the national political arena stemming from the protracted illness of President Abdellaziz Bouteflika who is currently convalescing at the Invalides Medical Centre in the French capital Paris.

A senior member of the FLN political bureau told Echorouk that such a coalition could be expanded to include other political parties from the opposition having a democratic vision in order to streamline the activities of all and sundry and to gear up forcefully for the 2014 Presidential elections in case President Bouteflika will be out of the electoral race because of his current health problems.

He also pointed out that it was out of the question to forge an alliance with those opposition parties which don’t share a similar approach and philosophy in terms of political values and democratic practices.

He clearly referred, to this effect, to the MSP movement led now by Abderrazak Mokri saying that the latter had steered clear of the power apparatus and had chosen to adopt a radical opposition stance towards the powers that be.

He indicated that broad-based consultations were underway to select the most appropriate national figure likely to deal with the fast-evolving juncture as part of the setting up of a “unified democratic pole”.

For his part, a spokesman for the TAJ Party expressed all-out backing for such an expanded democratic pole saying that his party was available to examine with the other partners how best to pool collective efforts and to pave the way for a good representation and a good showing in the next Presidential contest as a solid bloc.

There has been so far no precise indication as to the name of this political figurehead who is expected to represent this vaunted democratic pole at the 2014 polls but the FLN leading members are said to favour the election as next President of the Republic of a personality hailing from the FLN party’s fold.