FFS to participate in Algerian elections
Algeria’s biggest opposition party,The Socialist Forces Front (FFS) said on Friday it would take part in a May 10 parliamentary election, ending a 15-year boycott and lending credibility to government promises the vote will be more democratic than in the past.
Source : https://www.marocafrik.com/english/FFS-to-particip...
The National Commission of Elections Supervision will be reinforced on the voting day by judicial supervision of the electoral process which guarantees compliance with the electoral law.
The National Commission for elections supervision holds its first meeting on Tuesday .
“Our goal is to mobilise Algerians peacefully and politically to change the institutional political status quo,” FFS Secretary General Ali Laskri was quoted as telling state media, APS reported.The FFS is a secularist party which has strong support among Algeria’s large Berber ethnic minority.
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ts de facto leader, Hocine Ait Ahmed, was one of the leaders of the movement which fought for independence from colonial ruler France, but he went into opposition soon after Algerian won independence in 1954-1962. Had the FFS decided to abstain fom elections as it had done previously it could have influenced an important part of the electorate.
“We are happy to come back to the political arena. We hope we will make a difference by building democracy in Algeria,” Rachid Ait Hamadouche, an FFS activist, told Reuters.
Because of the suppression of the islamic FIS party in 1992 by the Algerian army and the subsequent civil war which cost between 150,000 to 200,000 lives the issue of islamic parties who are now in power in Tunisia,Morocco and Egypt and Libya is a difficult one in Algeria and although the islamic parties,the Movement of Society for Peace (MSP) Ennahda and El Islah have formed an alliance and expect to perform well in the elections as islamic parties have everywhere else in North Africa during teh Arab Spring. Many in Algeria fear a return to the violence and disorder of the 1990's which followed the war of independence against the French colonial power in which some estimate to have cost the lives of over a million Algerians.
The National Commission for elections supervision holds its first meeting on Tuesday .
“Our goal is to mobilise Algerians peacefully and politically to change the institutional political status quo,” FFS Secretary General Ali Laskri was quoted as telling state media, APS reported.The FFS is a secularist party which has strong support among Algeria’s large Berber ethnic minority.
I
ts de facto leader, Hocine Ait Ahmed, was one of the leaders of the movement which fought for independence from colonial ruler France, but he went into opposition soon after Algerian won independence in 1954-1962. Had the FFS decided to abstain fom elections as it had done previously it could have influenced an important part of the electorate.
“We are happy to come back to the political arena. We hope we will make a difference by building democracy in Algeria,” Rachid Ait Hamadouche, an FFS activist, told Reuters.
Because of the suppression of the islamic FIS party in 1992 by the Algerian army and the subsequent civil war which cost between 150,000 to 200,000 lives the issue of islamic parties who are now in power in Tunisia,Morocco and Egypt and Libya is a difficult one in Algeria and although the islamic parties,the Movement of Society for Peace (MSP) Ennahda and El Islah have formed an alliance and expect to perform well in the elections as islamic parties have everywhere else in North Africa during teh Arab Spring. Many in Algeria fear a return to the violence and disorder of the 1990's which followed the war of independence against the French colonial power in which some estimate to have cost the lives of over a million Algerians.
Source : https://www.marocafrik.com/english/FFS-to-particip...