ALGIERS, Algeria
Algerian President Abdelmadjid
Tebboune on Saturday dismissed the country’s prime minister and replaced him
with the head of his cabinet as the country struggles with inflation and next
year’s national elections approach.
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune
The state news agency said in
a statement Saturday that, after more than two years in office, Aimene
Benabderahmne would be replaced with 73-year-old lawyer Mohamed Labaoui, a
Tebboune ally who has headed the president’s cabinet since March.
Benabderahmne’s sacking comes
three years into Tebboune’s tenure and is the latest upheaval to shape North
African politics. In August, Tunisia’s president dismissed his prime minister,
while the head of Algeria’s powerful state-run oil company and eight of his
vice presidents were dismissed several weeks ago.
For Tebboune, the changing of
the guard takes place at a time of economic anxiety and ahead of next year’s
presidential elections. In December 2024, Tebboune, 78, will ask voters to give
him an another term leading Africa’s largest nation by geography — a country
with a population of 44 million that spans nearly one million square miles (2.4
million square kilometers) including vast swaths of the Sahara desert rich with
oil and gas.
Throughout Tebboune’s first
term, Algeria has remained heavily reliant on oil and gas to underwrite its
budget, while the price of basic goods such as food and medicine has spiked in
line with regional and worldwide inflation.
Algeria
faced similar inflation challenges to many countries after the peak of the
coronavirus pandemic and amid war in Ukraine but has also benefitted as Europe
has sought to wean itself off Russian natural gas and looked for additional
sources of energy.
Much like the rest of the
Middle East and North Africa, the country has experienced street protests over
Israel’s latest war with Hamas in Gaza. The government has issued some of the
region’s most supportive statements to the Palestinians, calling “Zionist
colonial occupation” the heart of the conflict on the day Hamas militants first
attacked Israel. But it has imposed restrictions on some street protests,
including those organized by Islamists opposed to the government.
That’s the environment in
which Tebboune is touring the country ahead of the election, his first since
Algeria’s popular Hirak movement led the push to remove longtime President
Abdelaziz Bouteflika in 2019. That year, Tebboune ran as a “people’s candidate” vowing to fight
corruption and revitalize the economy for everyone’s benefit, including that of
the younger generation that led Hirak’s protests.
He emerged
victorious in a low-turnout race plagued by boycotts, including from
Hirak, which saw him as
an ally of the historically powerful military apparatus.
Tebboune initially pledged to
make overtures to Hirak leaders and released imprisoned protesters from jail.
But his leadership has done little to quell the outrage of the young people who
led demonstrations; under his rule, Algeria has continued its crackdown on
pro-democracy groups, activists and journalists.
Larbaoui, the incoming prime
minister, rose from being an athlete on Algeria’s national handball team to a
member of the country’s diplomatic corps, having served as Algeria’s ambassador
to Egypt and the United Nations.
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