Concern over the mysterious state of health of the president, Abdelmedjid Tebboune.

Algeria votes constitutional reform amid fears of a power vacuum

photo_camera Algeria votes constitutional reform amid fears of a power vacuum

Algeria is holding a referendum this Sunday on a proposed reform of the Constitution that has been widely criticized by opposition groups amid concerns about the mysterious state of health of the president, Abdelmedjid Tebboune, who was rushed to a hospital in Germany on 29th after a case of Covid-19 in the presidential palace, and fears of a power vacuum. 

In a brief statement, the Presidency of the Republic announced last week that the 75-year-old president was in "voluntary confinement" after a positive case of coronavirus was detected in a person in his entourage. 

Three days later, and also in a brief and hermetic way, it was announced that he had been transferred to the military hospital of, the most important in the country, and it was underlined that his state "was not worrying". But barely 24 hours later he was evacuated again, this time to a specialized hospital in Germany. So far the regime has not reported what illness he is suffering from and whether he has also been infected with COVID-19. 

Argelia vota la reforma de la Constitución entre el temor a un vacío de poder

Power vacuum

Everything points to the fact that Tebbouone will not vote tomorrow in a referendum that he himself has supervised, along with the Army, since in April 2019, popular protests in the streets and pressure from the military elite forced then-President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to resign after twenty years in power, the last five of which were seriously ill. 

A consultation designed as the penultimate act in a turbulent transition in which opposition protests have not ceased and in which the repression of the military regime has intensified, imprisoning dozens of politicians, businessmen and military personnel close to the former president's inner circle. But also of the activists of the mass protest movement "Hirak", who after expelling Bouteflika now demand the fall of the military regime that has controlled the country since independence from France in 1962. 

The last act is the legislative elections, and therein lies the fear, since the current president of the Senate, Salah Oudjil, 89 years old, is transitory and according to the Constitution is not qualified to replace the head of state, which creates a dangerous power vacuum. The president in Algeria has many unique powers, such as the power to sign and validate the constitutional reform that is being submitted for consultation this Sunday. 

Argelia vota la reforma de la Constitución entre el temor a un vacío de poder

A reform criticized

In this context, the reform - which is being voted on the day Algeria commemorates the 66th anniversary of the beginning of the war of independence - has been pushed even further into the background, without popular interest and amidst numerous calls for abstention. The opposition, and in particular the "Hirak" believes that it does not conform to the demands and desires of the population, and that it is nothing more than a cosmetic operation to change without anything changing, although the government insists on presenting it as the result of popular protest. 

Under the slogan "November 1954: liberation, November 2020: change," the amendments - which above all affect the powers of the head of government, which are being expanded - have been cooked up hermetically in the presidential palace and were made public last September, in search of what Tebboune himself called "a broad consensus for the new Algeria. 

In this context, the government, led by Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad, opened what it called "a broad" debate with civil society, associations, personalities, experts, authorized parties and all sectors of Algerian society to defend the project and to encourage the voters, who are predicted to be scarce, as has happened in the recent elections. The text submitted for consultation is composed of six titles covering fundamental rights, public freedoms, organization and separation of powers, maintains a presidentialist regime and authorizes possible missions of the army abroad. 

Fear of the virus

The referendum is also taking place amidst a surge in coronavirus infections, which has officially infected more than 57,600 people in Algeria and caused the death of another 1,956. The rise in contagion - which is around 300 daily - has forced the government to regain restrictions on movement, particularly the curfew, and to insist on the campaign for the obligatory use of masks, hand washing and social distance. Algeria, which was the first country in Africa to confirm a case of coronavirus, has kept its air, sea and land borders closed since last March.

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