Algerians become angrier because of the president’s intention to bid for a fifth term in office, SkyNews reported on Saturday. The biggest protest wave was cold down by the policemen who had to use the teargas against protesters.
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s bid for another term made people protest across the country. The students and youth are the most active lays of the Algerian society, say the local media.
Riot police fired teargas to disperse a group of around 200 young people, around 1.5km from the presidential palace in Algiers. People are angry, more than a quarter of Algerians under 30 are unemployed, and many feel disconnected from a ruling elite still composed of veteran fighters from Algeria’s 1954-62 war of independence.
The mass demonstrations in the capital are well-organized, other cities like Oran, Constantine, Sétif, Tizi Ouzou and Bouïra are also supporting the protest actions, say the experts.
Authorities insist the president, who came to power in 1999, still has a firm grip on public affairs. “Bouteflika was sick when he sought a fourth term in 2014, but his medical results for the past five years were good,” the prime minister, Ahmed Ouyahia, told parliament on Thursday.
Algeria: protests, teargas and arrests continue
The Algerian people want the fall of the regime and insist on the stepping-down of President. On Saturday, activists converge at the Place de la Grande Poste in the city centre shouted, while police helicopters circled overhead.
Since the Arab Spring in 2011, it is the first really massive street demonstrations in Algeria. “There’s a huge crowd,” said Saïdani Meriem from the opposition party Jil Jadid, sharing photos of streets filled with protesters waving Algerian flags as they marched down the Rue Hassiba Ben Bouali in Algiers, where protests have officially been banned since 2001.
