How do you judge a few businessmen with Algerian media?

During weeks of continuous demonstrations in Algeria, in which President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and his regime were still in power, Algerians were chanting slogans against a group of powerful businessmen who benefited from their strong ties to power.

However, these slogans did not find their way to broadcast on private television channels, because of the ownership of this category of businessmen close to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and his regime that benefits from the use of power, money and media.

The French newspaper Le Monde in its Saturday edition revealed what it called the "oligarchia" - the rule of the minority where political power is confined to a small group that has the money, the lineage or the military authority - close to Bouteflika.

Power and money
She pointed out that the most prominent is Ali Haddad, president of the forum of heads of institutions, which is the largest economic gathering of Algerian businessmen, known as the financing of previous campaigns of President Bouteflika.

Haddad has two newspapers, one in Arabic, Algeria Time, the other in French, Luton d'Algerie, and two television channels, Desire TV and Desair.

According to the Le Monde report, these two channels, which were created to carry the president's campaign in 2014, still support Bouteflika's stay in power.

Haddad, who heads the first company in the field of public works, is very close to Said Bouteflika, the brother of the Algerian president, and has benefited from the largest public works projects without a tender, the newspaper quoted the professor at the National Higher School of Journalism and Information Sciences in Algeria Belkacem Mustafawi as saying.

The loyal camp
In parallel with the support of these two channels loyal to Bouteflika and his regime, Al-Nahar is featured in Al-Akhbar, which the protesters regard as loyal to the presidential camp.

The owner of the website "Medias-dz" specialist Lutfi Ramdani that the owner of An-Nahar Anis Rahmani supported opponents of Bouteflika in 2004 before becoming overnight a strong supporter of Bouteflika when he was re-elected.

The start of the protests in Algeria has shown the "loyalty" of Rahmani to the regime, according to a journalist in one of the public radio stations of the French newspaper.

The same source pointed out that the programs of Al-Nahar show a negative breath by criticizing the young players in power, but they do not target the army or the president himself at all.

Close to the system
The dominance of those close to the Algerian regime on private channels is even more extensive. This is highlighted by Le Monde in buying businessman Mohieddine Tahkout, the monopolist of the university transport sector and owner of the automobile assembly company, in 2015, "He said.

He is a close ally of former Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia, according to the newspaper.

Also in 2015, the Algerian One channel fell into the hands of the regime's close associates, Bashir Ould Zmireli and Ayoub Esau, one of the leaders of the real estate and food industries and those who enjoy the benefits of the system.

In a report published at the end of 2016, Reporters Without Borders expressed concern about what it called the "birth of a media oligarchy in the service of the mysterious economic and political interests" of the regime. However, the organization stated that a number of businessmen were not close to the regime, Who has been in open conflict with Bouteflika for years.

The owner of the Civital Industrial Group, one of the largest private companies in Algeria, tried in 2016 to buy Al Khobar Media Complex, which includes a daily newspaper and a television channel, but the hand of the Authority prevented it. The court ordered a freeze on the sale of shares to a company owned by it.

Double standards
Reporters Without Borders considered the Algerian authorities to be double standards, noting that Ali Haddad was allowed to acquire a number of media outlets because he was a close associate of the regime.

As for the owners of these commercial channels, the links they had with the regime were their "safety," but the winds of change that swept Algeria and its effects on the regime and the surrounding Bouteflika turned the accounts, and made many of them jump off the ship after the end of the regime seemed close to them Mustaphaoui, who confirmed that they "will return to exercise their influence in another way."