Six Algerians including Butaflika, Benflis qualified for presidential elections

The Algerian constitutional council has announced the final list of candidates for the presidential elections due to be on April 8th.

The council approved the nomination of 6 out of 9 of the candidates including President, Abdul Aziz Butaflika, and the chairman of the national liberation front, Ali Benflis, in addition to the chairman of the national reform movement, Abdullah Jabullah, and the chairperson of the labor party, Lweisa Hannoun, and Chairman if the coalition for culture and democracy, Saeed Saadi and Ali Fawzi Rabb'in.

The council, on the other hand, rejected the nomination of three candidates. They are the chairman of the al-Lewa and al-Adel movement, former foreign minister, Ahmad Taleb al-Ibraheimi, the chairman of the National front, Mousa Watwati, and former prime minister, Ahmad Ghazali. The former foreign minister, Ahmad Taleb al-Ibraheimi, deplored the decision and described it as an unprecedented matter out of which Butaflika targeted to chose his rivals in the Presidential elections.

For his part, the former prime minister, Ahmad Ghazali, accused the Algerian authorities of alienating candidates who can stand as effective rivals for President Butaflika in order to guarantee a second term of office. Ghazali stressed he was not surprised by the decision because he was exposed to the same measure in 1999 and his party was banned from practicing the political activity which is " another evidence on that the government does not treat the candidates fairly and equally."

The chairman of the National Liberation Front, Ali Benflis, also criticized the decision of the constitutional council providing for alienating several candidates, considering that this comes in the course of a series of obstacles placed by the authorities during the collecting of signatures for qualifying the candidates.