However, the move also thrusts the country into an uncertain political transition with no clear successor to the ailing president. Thus, there is no obvious successor presently and even the country’s ruling elite cannot agree on who should replace the elderly president. After cancelling the January 1991 polls, the president was the last of the “Janviéristes” who steered Algerian politics for over 20 years. Presidential ‘clique’The president is mostly surrounded by family members and childhood acquaintances. They can regularly mobilise voters in key cities and had been calling for a boycott of the presidential election before the protest movement started.

Source: The North Africa Journal April 03, 2019 15:22 UTC