In her opening speech, the boss of the PT – who should, unsurprisingly, be reappointed at the head of her party – had harsh words, mixing indignation and revolt, because of the political situation in the country, marked by “ unprecedented repression”.
It was an angry Louisa Hanoune who presented herself yesterday at the 8th ordinary congress of her political party, the Workers’ Party, which is being held on March 25 and 26 at the El-Riadh hotel in Sidi Fredj. In her opening speech, the boss of the PT, who should, unsurprisingly, be reappointed at the head of her party, had harsh words, mixing indignation and revolt because of the political situation in the country, marked by “an unprecedented and all-out repression” against “Algerians who only exercise their political and civic rights guaranteed by the Constitution”.
His one and a half-hour speech, in front of his party’s activists (more than 300) and several personalities, including the mujahedeen Zohra Drif-Bitat, activists from several political parties and actors from the associative movement, was devoted in much to comment on the national political scene “led” by the imprisonment of militants, activists, journalists, associative actors and citizens of all stripes. “We live in dark and difficult times. Political activity is incriminated, activists are hunted down and hundreds of citizens, because they have exercised their constitutional rights of freedom of expression and political exercise, are thrown into prison, trampling, in passing, the laws of the Republic”, is indignant the outgoing pasionaria of the PT.
For Louisa Hanoune, this “explosive” context does not inspire anything good. Never, she recalls, “has the country been so mistreated, freedoms prevented and justice trampled on”, the politician is offended, before wondering: “What are we accusing them of? What criminals have the Tahar Khouas (association activist), Hamou Boumediène (RPK activist), Abdennour Abdesselam (researcher and association activist) all in prison, or dozens of other citizens, young people, women and men, committed? ?” For the boss of the PT, it is, neither more nor less, “an authoritarian drift that does not say its name”.
Otherwise, she adds, “how to explain that journalists are also imprisoned, without trial and arbitrarily! I want to cite here the case of Mohamed Mouloudj, a journalist for the daily Liberté, or the case of journalist Abdelkrim Zeghileche, two professionals under an arrest warrant for several months”. This was an opportunity for Louisa Hanoune to castigate article 87 bis, on the basis of which several citizens are accused of belonging to a terrorist group. An “aberration”, she says. “Article 87 bis is a serious drift”, she insists again, pleading for its immediate repeal. The dark picture painted by the passion of the PT does not stop there.
In the second part of her speech, Louisa Hanoune described yesterday, a broken-down country, paralyzed on the social and economic levels. “Rise in the prices of basic necessities, the manifest decline in purchasing power, shortage of several food products, shortage of medicines, endemic unemployment, massive closure of businesses”… in short, “it is indeed a serious crisis, with catastrophic indicators, plunging entire layers of the population into precariousness and, in some situations, into poverty”. The reasons for this lackluster situation are known, according to Ms. Hanoune, who points the finger at the country’s authorities, “responsible for this shipwreck.
Without political and economic vision, the authorities manage the country in an anarchic way.” Worse, “the leaders are carrying out an anti-national policy, as evidenced by the 2022 finance law which only makes the popular strata and the workers more precarious”, castigates Louisa Hanoune. For her, it is absolutely necessary to put an end to this “drift” whose consequences “are already visible and hard felt by the Algerians”. The solution? It is political, according to the boss of the Trotskyist party, who had the opportunity to repeat yesterday that salvation would come from a new democratic process.
“We must create new conditions allowing free political exercise, an end to harassment against political parties, journalists and trade unionists. It is necessary, she recommends, to open a serene, free, and widened dialogue to all the wishes of the country. But to do this, Louisa Hanoune puts a requirement on this salutary process in her eyes: “This now requires the immediate release of all political and opinion detainees.” On another aspect, during her speech, the Secretary-General of the PT also pleaded for the exit of Algeria from the Arab League which, according to her, is “today subject to imperialist forces and the Zionist entity”. The election of the general secretary of the PT is scheduled for today.
