Students and university staff protest Bouteflika’s candidacy

In what has been described in media reports as the biggest street demonstrations in Algeria in a decade, thousands of students and university staff took to the streets in the capital Algiers to protest this week against the candidacy of incumbent president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who is seeking a fifth term.

Wheelchair-bound Bouteflika, who will turn 82 next Sunday and who has presided over the North African country for 20 years, is rarely seen in public since he suffered a major stroke in 2012. He announced his candidacy earlier last month for the presidential election, scheduled for 18 April.

Not since 19 May 1956, during the Algerian War of Independence, have so many Algerian students chosen to desert university lecture halls to call for change. The historical comparison featured in many calls to join the protests on social media networks on the eve of the marches held last Friday and this week on Tuesday.

Demonstrations have been banned in Algeria since 2001.

Algerians from all over the country have also used social media networks such as Facebook to call for democratic change, particularly an end to the 20-year regime and its attendant symbolic figureheads such as Bouteflika. The video clip shows protesters demanding the departure of all in his government.

Initially, when Bouteflika’s candidacy was announced, several student organisations aligned with political parties close to the government lent their support. Many, however, have been taken aback by the anonymous calls made on social networks.

The large-scale popular mobilisation initially began on Friday 22 February. By Tuesday this week there was a groundswell of support from Algerians from all walks of life.

From 9am on Tuesday, students from the University of Algiers began demonstrating. The demonstrators were prevented by security forces from moving their demonstration to the streets of the city, while students from many other higher education institutions went out in spite of “strict security measures”, according to a local press report.

The students repeated slogans used during the 22 February march, shouting “no” to the fifth term sought by Bouteflika and demanding the departure of those in power, according to Liberte Algerie newspaper.

Even though the National Council of Higher Education Teachers has not yet officially decided on joining the popular mobilisation, its national coordinator, Abdelhafid Milat, expressed his personal support for the protest movement on his Facebook page.

Lecturers, researchers, academics and intellectuals had already expressed their commitment to the movement and their refusal to support the current system through a petition which was made public, according to a press report.

The signatories said: “We have no right today, as academics and intellectuals, to miss this important political and social turn where the people aspire to a better future” as academics and intellectuals have a central role in framing the march of the people who aspire to freedom and justice, according to a local press report.