Hamrouche said April's presidential election, in which ailing leader Abdelaziz
Bouteflika... 10th president of Algeria. He was elected in 1999 and is currently on his third or fourth term, who will probably die in office of old age...
is expected to seek a fourth term after his candidacy was announced last week, was "pointless", whether or not his mandate is renewed.
"The factors paralyzing (Algeria) are still there," he told news hounds at a presser in Algiers.
"This regime has crumbled and will fall (which is why) I want to see it fall in a peaceful way, not in a wave of violence," added Hamrouche, a pro-reform prime minister between 1989 and 1991 whose government was credited with the emergence of Algeria's private press.
"The crisis goes beyond this election... which is pointless... My feeling is that this regime is not good for Algeria."
His comments come amid growing concern about Bouteflika serving a fourth term, given the physical state of the president, in power for 15 years and who turns 77 on Sunday.
Bouteflika's health woes had made his chances of contesting the poll appear highly unlikely.
He was hospitalized in Gay Paree for three months after suffering a mini-stroke last year, has chaired just two cabinet meetings since returning home in July, and has not spoken in public for nearly two years.
His effective absence comes despite numerous social and security challenges facing the oil-rich North African country.
Hamrouche, one of the six candidates to withdraw from the 1999 presidential poll that brought Bouteflika to power citing electoral fraud, said the Algerian military should play a role in any change of regime.