The ruling coalition in Algeria agreed to nominate President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to run for a fifth term amid cries for election boycott. The 82-year-old president who has been in power since 1999 has not spoken in public since he suffered a stroke in 2013. “The parties of the presidential coalition nominate Abdelaziz Bouteflika for the upcoming presidential elections,” the four coalition partners said in a statement on Saturday. Insisting on Bouteflika as President augurs ill for a country facing pressing challenges from endemic youth unemployment, sluggish economy, dwindling oil revenues and instability in the vast south. Prominent Algerian politicians and intellectuals expressed outcry at a fifth term candidacy for Bouteflika.

Source: The North Africa Journal February 04, 2019 14:03 UTC