Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, 75, returned to his country on Friday, a month after being hospitalized in Germany where he underwent foot surgery due to post-Covid complications, according to the authorities. He had already spent two months in the same country at the end of 2020 after being affected by the coronavirus. “The President of the Republic, supreme chief of the armed forces and Minister of Defense, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, returned to the country today”, indicated the public channel TVA3, which broadcast images of his return. The president made no statement. Not wearing a mask, he greeted standing and shoulder to shoulder the senior officials, including Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad and Chief of Staff Saïd Chanegriha, who had come to welcome him in a lounge at the Boufarik military airport, near Algiers.
Extended medical stay
Hospitalized for two months in Germany (October 28-December 29) after contracting Covid-19 in Algiers, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, a heavy smoker, had to return on January 10 to be operated on in Berlin following “complications” in his right foot . He was operated “successfully” on January 20, according to the presidency, who did not specify the nature of these “complications”. The prolonged stays of the Head of State abroad, three months in all since October 28, while Algeria is going through a health, political and socio-economic crisis, have not failed to raise concerns about a possible vacancy of power. ” Wake up ! President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has been absent for a month. Since mid-October, he has spent only a dozen days in Algeria. No leader, no institution is worried about this repetition of the humiliating 4e mandate, ”journalist and analyst Abed Charef wrote on Twitter. The latter referred to the fourth term of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, when the ousted ex-president, struck by a stroke in 2013, had become helpless and aphasic.
The files on the table
During his hospitalization across the Rhine, President Tebboune let it be known that he followed “daily, hour by hour, everything that is happening in Algeria”. His absence came in a context of tension in the regime as the second anniversary of the unprecedented popular uprising of the hirak, launched on February 22, 2019 and which pushed his predecessor Abdelaziz Bouteflika to resign two months later, approached.
Among the priority issues that await it, the new electoral law which will have to be presented to Parliament with a view to the local and early legislative elections planned in principle by the end of the year. A government reshuffle would also be on the agenda. On the day of his departure for Berlin, Abdelmadjid Tebboune publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with the action of Abdelaziz Djerad’s government, fueling rumors of an upcoming reshuffle. The Head of State is also expected on the memorial issue between Algeria and France, a former colonial power. The report by French historian Benjamin Stora, delivered almost a month ago to French President Emmanuel Macron, has still not aroused an official reaction in Algiers.
Year III of the Hirak
Coming to power on December 12, 2019 with the desire to embody “the new Algeria”, Abdelmadjid Tebboune finds himself at the head of a country at an impasse with blocked institutions and a breathless economy. The largest Maghreb country is seeing its foreign exchange reserves melt, depending on fluctuations in oil market prices. His return comes ten days before the second anniversary of the hirak, suspended in March 2020 due to the health crisis. Many hirak opponents and activists are arrested, tried and sentenced daily in a climate of repression against opponents, independent media and bloggers. According to the National Committee for the Liberation of Detainees (CNLD), an association supporting prisoners of conscience, more than 70 people are currently imprisoned in Algeria in connection with the protests of the hirak and / or individual freedoms. Prosecutions based in at least 90% of cases on publications critical of the authorities on social networks.
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