Algerian Finance Minister Aimene Benabderrahmane was appointed prime minister on Wednesday following a legislative election held earlier this month, the presidency said as it sought to quell a deep socio-economic crisis.
“Aimene Benabderrahmane has been appointed Prime Minister and has been named to consult with political parties and civil society to form a government as soon as possible,” the presidency said in a statement.
Benabderrahmane, 60, replaces Abdelaziz Djerad, who had been in office since the end of 2019 and announced the resignation of his government last week after early parliamentary elections held on June 12.
Djerad’s government had not been able to remedy the country’s economic crisis. Africa’s fourth largest economy is heavily dependent on oil revenues, which have fallen in the face of the global economic downturn. Unemployment amounts to more than 12%, according to figures from the World Bank.
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who had previously expressed dissatisfaction with Djerad and his cabinet, thanked him for leading the government “under difficult conditions”, especially the new coronavirus pandemic. On Wednesday, Algeria’s main Islamist party, the Movement of Society for Peace (MSP), which came in third with 65 seats in the 407-seat legislature, said it would not be part of a new government.
The country’s incumbent National Liberation Front (FLN) won the most seats in the vote on June 12, with only 23% turnout. The low national turnout has been seen as a sign of Algeria’s disillusionment and opposition to a political class that is considered to have lost much of its credibility.
Algeria’s long-running protest movement “Hirak” recorded the votes. In the run-up to the official results, the MSP, a moderate Islamist party close to the Muslim Brotherhood, had said its candidates were at the forefront of most regions, suggesting it could be part of the government.
But after consulting with President Tebboune, the party said it decided to go back. “What was proposed does not allow us to influence political and economic developments,” MSP chief Abderazzak Makri told an Algiers press conference.
He said he had been asked to propose a list of 27 names from which the chief executive would elect four or five ministers. “It is not up to us to elect our ministers (in government) and that is unacceptable,” he said. “We want power and not its facade,” Makri said. The MSP had been part of successive Algerian governments from 1996 to 2011.
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