The 2019 Algerian protests, also called the Smile Revolution, began on 16 February 2019, ten days after Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced his candidacy for a fifth presidential term in a signed statement. These protests, without precedent since the Algerian Civil War, have been peaceful.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika has been president of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria since 1999. Two amnesties (via referendum) for former combatants in the Algerian Civil War had taken place during his presidency (1999 and 2005). This "dirty war" between Islamic guerrillas and the government had claimed up to 200,000 lives from 1991-2002. Nearly half of the Algerian population was born after the end of the conflict. Oil-rich during the Arab Spring, the government was able to quiet dissent during the 2010-2012 protests with increased spending. The constitutional revision of 2016 limited the number of presidential terms that could be served to two, but nevertheless allowed Bouteflika to seek a fifth term, because the law was not retroactive. Since 2005, and especially after his stroke in 2013, Bouteflika's ability to govern the country was called into question: rumors of his death were frequent as he was frequently hospitalized, no longer spoke and made very few written statements. In this context, some Algerians considered his announced candidacy for the presidential election, originally scheduled for 18 April 2019, to be humiliating.
In December 2018, calls for demonstrations in the neighborhood of Bab El Oued against the fifth term went unheeded, except by the police, which mobilized a significant dissuasive force. Algiers central post office
The protest was at first limited geographically to northern Algeria. The first major demonstration took place on 16 February 2019 in Kherrata, at the eastern end of the wilaya of Bejaia. In Khenchela, on 19 February, a giant poster of the President of the Republic was torn down from city hall and trampled. Two days later, another suffered a similar fate in Annaba. This form of protest was related to the recent practice of offering gifts to a framed portrait of Bouteflika in the latter's absence.
Protests were organized via social media in major and mid-sized cities on 22 February. Those in Algiers—where street protests had been illegal since a demonstration on 14 June 2001, "when hundreds of thousands of demonstrators from Kabylie converged on the capital" —were the biggest in nearly 18 years. Smaller protests, with slogans like "There is no president, there's a poster," had been taking place in Algiers since 11 February. On 22 February, the portrait of the President was torn down from the landmark central post office. Human rights activists said that there were up to 800,000 demonstrators on 22 February 2019. Regularly hospitalized for "periodic medical examinations", Abdelaziz Bouteflika was admitted to the University Hospital of Geneva (Switzerland) on 24 February 2019. Another large-scale demonstration took place on 24 February at the call of the Mouwatana movement ("citizenship"), and another on 1 March, following another anonymous call
During the 1 March demonstration, 183 people were injured and Hassan Benkhedda, son of former interim government president, Benyoucef Benkhedda, died of a heart attack. Speaking as Interior Minister, Noureddine Bedoui confirmed that it was related to police action against "thugs unrelated to the protestors."
On 2 March 2019, Abdelaziz Bouteflika replaced his campaign director, the former prime minister Abdelmalek Sellal, who had actively campaigned for the President since 2004, by the virtually unknown Abdelghani Zaalane [fr; ar], a career provincial administrator. Considered to be a response to the ongoing protests, this dismissal followed the disclosure of a recording between Sellal and Ali Haddad in which the former is heard making threats. The deadline for submitting candidatures for the presidential election was 3 March 2019. The idea of postponing the election was put forward. . The private channel Dzaïr News reported that one million people demonstrated across Algeria on 1 March, which was also the first time state television broadcast images of the protests. Unofficial estimations put the total number of protestors at 3 million for the second week. On 3 March, the candidacy of Bouteflika was filed by his campaign director, though the law stipulates that the candidate must be physically present for this process. Another signed message announced that if re-elected, a national conference would be convened to adopt reforms as well as a new Constitution - to be approved by referendum - and that he would not take part in the next presidential election which he promised would be held early.
On 9 March, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research moved the spring university holidays forward to the next day (10 March) and extended them by two weeks in an effort to calm matters down. On 10 March, the Army Chief of Staff Ahmed Gaid Salah, close to Bouteflika, gave a speech to officer cadets saying the "army and the people had a common vision of the future". This speech was front page news in El Khabar.[56] A 5-day general strike was begun the same day. On 11 March, it was announced that the President would not seek re-election; that Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia had resigned and been replaced by Interior Minister Noureddine Bedoui; and that the April 2019 presidential election was postponed indefinitely.[58] The day after the announcement, university students protested for the third consecutive Tuesday across the country on 12 March, chanting "No Tricks, Bouteflika" in response to the postponement sine die of the Presidential elections. On Wednesday, teachers protested. On Thursday, lawyers and judges were on the streets in several cities. On 14 March, Djamila Bouhired encouraged the younger generation demonstrating, saying: "Your elders liberated Algeria from colonial domination, and you are giving back to Algerians their liberties and their pride despoiled since independence". The protests on 15 March were estimated to have been larger than those the previous Friday. The Guardian reported that hundreds of thousands were in the streets, La Croix put the number at over a million. Protesters carried a banner criticizing France's comments that the cancellation of elections should lead to a "transition of reasonable length" saying, "It's the people who decide, not France!". Other signs included "Macron, deal with your yellow vests" and "Elysée, stop ! It's 2019, not 1830".
On 17 March, the newly appointed Prime Minister announced the intention of forming a government of politically unaffiliated experts, which would "reflect the demographics of the Algerian society". Student were again in the streets on Tuesday, 18 March demanding that Bouteflika step down by the end of his term (28 April). The army chief of staff said that the army needed to deal with the crisis. Newly-appointed deputy prime minister Ramtane Lamamra began a diplomatic tour in Moscow, where he met with Sergei Lavrov.
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