Algerian President grants leave to ministers running for parliament

Algerian President Abdel Aziz Boutaflika decided to grant a leave to the ministers who run for the coming parliamentary elections scheduled to be held on May 4. The leave will begin from Saturday, only one day before the launch of their electoral campaigns.

According the statement issued by Algerian presidency, President Abdel Aziz Boutaflika decided to grant a leave to the ministers who will run for the coming parliamentary elections. He ordered the other members of the Cabinet to replace them during the current period of electoral campaigns.

A state of controversy emerged among the country’s politicians after the decision to allow the ministers participate in the parliamentary elections during the recent period. The decision raised suspicion over the intention of the government to falsify the vote to serve the interests of the ruling regime.

The opposition block to Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, which includes the largest opposition political parties, is in a state of a major conflict with the ruling party. The "Mezaffran" document, which emerged from the first meeting of the Algerian opposition, 20 years after the "Sant'Egidio" meeting in 1995 called the "Rome Agreement" and called the "Reconciliation Agreement", divided the opposition leaders.

The current that will participate in the election, scheduled to be held in May 4, represented by the Movement for a Society for Peace and Renaissance, and the Justice, Development and Rally Front for Culture and Democracy, believes that the Mezaffran document has no reason to boycott the election, while the other current, which announced its boycott to the election, continued to accuse his opponent in the body.

The Islamic parties, which announced their participation in the upcoming parliamentary elections, lined up with critics of the boycotters. The Islamic parties and personalities urged the citizens not to boycott the election, adding that boycotting the coming election will contribute in rigging the elections.

The candidate of the Islamic Union, in the province of Algiers, which includes three Islamic formations, Hassan Laribi, criticized the boycotters, and said in a statement, that their step shows that they are weak to achieve positive results during the upcoming elections, adding that their mission is based on jamming, under the guidance of hidden powers.

The senior leader of the Justice and Development Front presented a number of justifications that the boycotters adopt in their argument for boycotting. He pointed out that the boycotters saw through the previous decades after the transitional council from 1997 to 2017 that the authority created the parliament to pass its unfair laws to the community, and to inform international public opinion that the opposition is not linked to the people by practicing fraud in every entitlement.