Aymen Ben Abdelrahmane is the former Minister of Finance of the outgoing government, but also ex-governor of the Algerian Central Bank.
A new Prime Minister has just been appointed in Algeria by President Tebboune. Aymen Ben Abdelrahmane is a technocrat with a financial profile, whose roadmap is to restore the country’s economy.
His CV is impressive. Aymen Ben Abdelrahmane is the former Minister of Finance of the outgoing government, but also ex-governor of the Algerian Central Bank. A graduate of the National School of Administration in Algiers (ENA) and the National School of Public Finances in Clermont-Ferrand, this 55-year-old technocrat knows inside and out the economic issues that are his specialty and especially the challenges that await him.
Its first project will be to constitute a government, after the election of the new parliament, elected in an atmosphere of general disinterest. Then, it will have to propose an action plan to save the Algerian economy which is today plunged into a deep slump. The COVID-19 pandemic and the drop in oil prices have seriously affected the country’s finances. Foreign exchange reserves have shrunk in recent months. Result: unemployment continues to rise and so does the despair of young people.
Impossible mission?
In this context, it is a little mission impossible for Aymen Ben Abdelrahmane. First, because the diversification of the Algerian economy is not progressing. The oil rent remains the heart of the State’s revenue. In a still heavily administered system, bureaucracy is crippling and exchange controls still in place. In short, Algeria attracts few foreign investors.
And then, there is a major obstacle for the Algerian power: how to govern and especially mobilize a country of 45 million inhabitants without real political legitimacy in a climate of all-out repression? The last legislative elections turned into a fiasco with a turnout of 23%, according to official figures. The hirak, the peaceful protest movement, is admittedly muted today, but it continues to fuel general mistrust.
Hence the question of the editorialist of the newspaper Al-Watan: “It is difficult to see how, in such a minefield, the executive, the parliament and the other institutions will be able to manage the country, in peace and serenity, legislate for the nation, without the support of the population.”
A diplomat notes that “the Algerian power had no capacity for projection and managed the country on a small-scale”, according to his expression. Suffice to say that the start is not for tomorrow in Algeria… even with a new Prime Minister loaded with diplomas!
