The legislative elections of June 12 are not going to be easy for the parties of the former ruling coalition.
This is particularly the case for the former single party, the FLN, whose candidacy of the first person in charge, namely the secretary-general Abou El Fadhl Baadji, was officially rejected on Sunday, May 2 by the authority in charge of the poll, in this case, the ANIE. A blow for a formation that has always considered itself as the first political force in the country.
Indeed, in correspondence sent on Sunday, May 2 to the FLN party, the delegation of the independent national authority for the elections (ANIE) of the wilaya of Algiers officially notified the decision to reject the candidate’s application. The current secretary-general of the party on behalf of the next legislative elections of June 12, at the level of the electoral district of Algiers. Thus, the SG of the FLN, Abou El Fadhl Baadji, who was to pilot his party’s list in the capital, is ejected as filth by the authority in charge of this election boycotted en masse by the opposition parties, like the RCD, the FFS, and the PT.
However, faced with the magnitude of the controversy caused by this decision, the FLN tried to justify the rejection of the application file of its first person in charge for the next legislative elections, in a press release published a few hours after the decision of the ANIE. The party explained that its secretary-general had “presented an incomplete file and that the ANIE rejected his candidacy because he did not present a document justifying his position vis-à-vis national service”.
The candidacy of the SG of the FLN in Algiers rejected by the ANIE
A far-fetched justification, believe many observers who see this “gap” in supporting national service as a “loophole” to hide the real political reasons behind this exclusion of a supposedly heavyweight on the national political scene. Because whether we like it or not, we do not rule out the leader of a political party, moreover in charge of power since 1962, from an election of this scope for administrative reasons.
For observers, this “elimination” of the SG of the FLN from the race for the legislature is a way of signaling to Baadji that his days are numbered not only at the head of the FLN but also on the national political scene. It must also be said that it is not only the head of the SG of the FLN that is targeted, since several media sources have reported the disqualification, by the ANIE, of a large number of party candidates across several wilayas from the country. Indeed, according to the same sources, several names from the FLN lists in some wilayas were rejected, namely 5 in Algiers, 5 in Oran, 5 in Relizane, 5 in Jijel, 5 in Batna, 4 in Annaba and 2 in Blida.
In addition to the FLN, the same sources mentioned numerous cases of candidates from other formations of the former government coalition under the regime of deposed President Abdelaziz Bouteflika whose files were rejected everywhere by the local representations of the ANIE, through different wilayas of the country. This is particularly the case of the RND, of which all the candidates on the list of the wilaya of Djelfa were rejected by the local commission of ANIE.
The former supporters of Bouteflika sacrificed?
According to the same sources, the TAJ party of the former Minister of Public Works, Amar Ghoul, currently in prison for corruption cases, also experienced the same concerns, when the lists of candidates were submitted in certain wilayas. The reasons for the rejection of the files would be linked to the involvement of certain candidates in corruption cases or suspected of being close to business circles. It must be said, however, that beyond the reasons given by the authority in charge of this election as to the rejection of many candidate files from the parties of the former government coalition, everything suggests that it is indeed a political sacrifice on the part of the supporters of the new power, embodied by Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
The latter, who refused, at least officially, any partisan sponsorship for the conduct of his government, would therefore have chosen to do without traditional parties to rely on what has become fashionable today in political choice. power. This is the movement of civil society, embodied, for the next election, by the noria of so-called independent lists. Indeed, it suffices to see a large number of independent lists in the legislative race compared to those of political parties to realize that the future choice of power has already been made.
