Less than a month before the vote, the election campaign for the presidential election in Algeria officially began Sunday, November 17. On this occasion, Algerian writer and playwright Mohamed Kacimi spoke on France 24 to challenge the holding of this election. "There is a very beautiful expression of the sailors of Algiers when they go back in their net not fish, but seaweed.They say it's bullshit.These elections, as they stand today it is at the same time, a masquerade, a big puppet and of the hogwash ", summarizes the author of " Dissidences , chronicles of the Hirak ", (editions Frantz Fanon).
"An extraordinary generational gap"
Mohamed Kacimi, like a good part of the population, vilifies the five candidates who have all participated or supported the two decades of presidency of Abdelaziz Bouteflika: "You have a regime that comes out of his pocket a straight flush with five figures all of them from the old seraglio and all involved up to the neck in the scheming of the old regime.There is especially an extraordinary generational gap.The oldest was born on the eve of the Battle of Monte Cassino and the most young date of the battle of Dien Bien Phu ".
Among them, the former prime ministers Ali Benflis and Abdelmadjid Tebboune, septuagenarians, are favorites. The other candidates are Azzedine Mihoubi, Abdelaziz Belaid and Abdelkader Bengrina.
For these five men, the campaign, which ends on December 8 at midnight, three days before the poll, began in relative discretion. Sunday, no candidate had organized a meeting in Algiers or in one of the big cities of the north, where the refusal of the poll is claimed weekly.
Abdelkader Bengrina had planned a tour of the capital with the press, while refusing to indicate in advance where he would go. According to local media reports, the meeting of Ali Benflis was heckled in Tlemcen. Several hundred people gathered in front of the room where the candidate was to host a rally and chanted "Benflis clears", according to the same sources.
According to the writer Mohamed Kacimi, these reactions show that the vote will be boycotted by part of the population: "We see today that these candidates self designated or designated by the army or by this retired general (Gaid Salah , the chief of staff of the army, new strongman of the country, Ed) are pebbled each time they show the end of the nose ".
"These candidates are not legitimate, the authority that has enthroned them is not legitimate and the man, the conductor, who has been inducted as head of this country, General Gaïd Salah, has no legitimacy, neither constitutional nor political nor historical and even less intellectual, "continues the playwright.
"Move to another stage"
The Hirak, an unprecedented protest movement that appeared in February, is not weakening. The massive demonstrations continue every week. The participants in this movement refuse more than ever the holding of a presidential election. After April's departure of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the protesters had already opposed an election scheduled for July 4, which had been canceled due to lack of candidates.
"The Hirak movement has been an extraordinary and magnificent peaceful opposition force as we have seen, and now is the time to move to another stage," notes Mohamed Kacimi. The writer pleads for it to become a force of proposal from which emerge new figures from this new generation "to go to the constitution of a committee of public safety and of course prepare real democratic elections this time ", he adds.
"Algeria is not a barracks"
But General Ahmed Gaïd Salah and the military high command refuse any other crisis scenario than a presidential election. They reject the establishment of transitional institutions as demanded by the protesters. On Saturday evening, the high command appealed to Algerians to "urge" them to "actively participate alongside the security forces" to "ensure the success of this crucial meeting for the country's future".
On the other hand, Mohamed Kacimi emphasizes that the crackdown hardened in the run-up to elections: "Gaid Salah's problem is that he intends to rule Algeria as he could lead a troufion regiment or a battalion of special chores Algeria is not a barracks ".
Nearly a hundred protesters from Hirak are in fact detained and / or are being prosecuted in Algeria, according to the National Committee for the Release of Detainees (CNLD). "Today, the great figures born of this movement have all been Instead of opening the game, this autistic diet, even with Alzheimer's, has completely closed the game and will pay the consequences, "concludes Mohamed Kacimi.