ALGIERS, 6 May 2003 — Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced yesterday that he is to name a new government after a lengthy meeting with Prime Minister Ali Benflis, with whom he reportedly has “far-reaching divergences,” the presidency said in a statement. The statement did not specify who would succeed Benflis as prime minister, a post he has held since August 2000, or when the new government would be named.
But Bouteflika asked Benflis to continue to oversee “the management of government affairs” temporarily, the statement said. The reshuffle comes after the Algerian press reported that differences of opinion had emerged between Bouteflika and the prime minister at the annual congress of the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) in March. According to the Algerian press, Bouteflika was angered by the FLN’s refusal to pledge to back his bid for re-election in elections due early next year.
Benflis, who is the FLN’s secretary-general, had dropped the debate on the party’s presidential candidate from the congress’s agenda. The FLN had backed Bouteflika when he ran for a first term as president in 1999, and the refusal to debate the issue of next year’s presidential elections was interpreted as the FLN distancing itself from Bouteflika.
Meanwhile, two people have been killed and three injured in an attack by suspected extremists near Medea, 80 kilometers south of the Algerian capital Algiers, a security force official said yesterday. The attack occurred Sunday when two vehicles the victims were traveling in came under automatic weapons fire at around 10 p.m. (2100 GMT) from an “indeterminate” number of extremists, the official said. Two of the passengers were killed on the spot and three others injured, one seriously.
The Armed Islamic Group (GIA), one of two main extremist armed Islamic groups that operate in Algeria, is known to be active in the region. Meanwhile, the security forces said an extremist was killed in a military sweep of the Sidi Bel-Abbes region, 440 kilometers west of Algiers. The slain extremist was said to be a local “emir”, or leader, of the Houmat Daawa Salafia extremist group (HDS, Defenders of Salafist Predication), newspapers reported yesterday.
