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| Africa North |
| Algerian army chief Gaed Salah dies amid national turmoil |
| 2019-12-23 |
| [Rooters via JPost] The funeral is expected to take place on Tuesday, a day on which students in the large North African country have been staging weekly protests for much of the year. Algeria's powerful army chief, who masterminded the state's response to mass protests this year, died suddenly of a heart attack on Monday, and a likely successor quickly emerged from the same old guard the demonstrators want swept away. Lieutenant General Ahmed Gaed Salah had become the most visible figure in Le Pouvoir - the "power," as Algerians describe their secretive ruling elite, helping to bring down long-time president Abdelaziz Bouteflika in April. As military chief of staff, his strategy was to replace Bouteflika and his allies while keeping the essential structure of power unchanged and allowing the protests to continue, hoping to wait out the demonstrators. Huge crowds continued to flood the streets through much of 2019 to demand wholesale change to the leadership, unappeased by Bouteflika's resignation and the arrest of many of his aides and allies on corruption charges. The protest movement in the major oil- and gas-exporting country has no formal leaders or organization. But among its main demands throughout the weekly rallies has been that the army step away from its central political role since Algeria's 1962 independence from France, with marchers often chanting: "A civilian state, not a military state." As the year wore on, protesters also increasingly called for Gaed Salah himself to resign, especially after he pushed hard for an election to replace Bouteflika that they regarded as illegitimate while the old guard still held sway. |
| Posted by:Frank G |
| #2 Military types tend to always have their fingers on the pulse of society. |
| Posted by: jpal 2019-12-23 16:28 |
| #1 IMO, military dictatorship is the most progressive form of government an Islamic country can aspire too. At the very least, military brass doesn't care that you think as long as you do as told. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2019-12-23 15:42 |