“President Bouteflika’s illness stirs the Islamist camp”
Abdellah Djaballah and Abderrezak Mokri
The long drawn-out illness affecting President Abdellaziz Bouteflika, who is currently convalescing in a Paris hospital, has stirred the Islamist trend in Algeria with a host of party leaders floating the idea of forging a broad-based Islamist coalition in expectation of the 2014 Presidential elections in a bid to stymie the candidates of the power establishment.
The leader of the justice and development Party, AbdallahDjaballah told Echorouk that such a move was yet to be thoroughly gauged and discussed by the leaderships of the Islamist parties concerned.
Djaballah indicated that he would extend his party’s backing for such a coalition move, if need be.
For his part, the newly-elected MSP leader, Abderrazak Mokri, said that a projected Islamist coalition was still brewing adding that such an idea must be first tackled by all the parties concerned before being translated into reality on the national political front.
The leader of the Front of change, Abdelmadjid Menasra, asserted instead that it was unnecessary to precipitate events as the 2014 Presidential electoral contest is still a long way off.
Menasra however pointed out that the idea harboured by some Islamist Party leaders about a broad coalition in anticipation of the next Presidential polls was worth taking into account as such a strategy, he said, will doubtless bolster the electoral chances of a candidate stemming from the Islamist trend.
For his part, the Secretary General of the national reform party, DjahidYounsi, underlined that he’d had so far no consultations with other Islamist Party leaders about this vaunted Islamist pre-election coalition, adding however that such an idea was worthwhile and should be implemented in due time as it will help pool all the efforts and stamina of the Islamist camp ahead of the 2014 electoral race.
The number two of the now-dissolved FIS Party, Ali Benhadj, for his part, expressed his all-out support for an Islamist coalition in expectation of the next Presidential elections saying that the Islamists were bound to unify their ranks and were entitled, as he put it, to reach the highest spheres of power through the ballot box despite the lingering political logjam imposed by the current authorities.