Algeria: Ruling FLN party chief’s Views on Intelligence and Western Sahara are behind his stepping down

By African Bulletin on November 14, 2016

The long-standing chief of Algeria’s ruling FLN party Amar Saadani has resigned just weeks after making accusations that a retired spy chief and a former prime minister had been French agents.

Saadani, a close ally of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, has often been critical of opponents, but analysts said he crossed a line when he openly criticized veterans of the independence war against France.

Algeria is mostly still run by a generation of older politicians involved in the war of independence against France, including Bouteflika. And the FLN or Front de Liberation Nationale has dominated Algeria’s politics since independence in 1962.

“I am resigning because of health problems,” Saadani told FLN members during a meeting on Saturday, which was broadcast on local television.

Djamel Ould Abes, 82, a doctor and close Bouteflika associate, has been appointed new FLN chief.

In remarks earlier this month during an FLN meeting, Saadani had accused Mohamed Mediene, former chief of the military spy directorate known as the DRS, and former premier Abdelaziz Belkhadem, a personal advisor to the president, of working as French agents in the past.

Mediene, who was rarely seen in public during his time as DRS chief, has made no statement in response. But Belkhadem dismissed the allegations in comments to local media.

“He can ask people in my village what I did during the war of independence,” he said. “Everyone can ask what my family did during the war.”

Mediene was forced into retirement earlier this year as part of Bouteflika’s campaign to curb DRS political influence.

For some other sources, disparities between Saadani and ruling military elite in Algeria are not limited to his accusation to Medien, but also for his position on the Western Sahara.

According to the French daily Le Monde, Saadani accused General Mohamed Mediene, alias Toufik, for being at the service of France. This statement adds to his unprecedented statement on the Western Sahara.

Soon after the decision was made public, Algerian website Tamurt linked it to Saadani’s disagreement with Algerian decision-makers’ support for the Polisario, and mentioned his many public remarks asserting that the Sahara is part of Morocco. This is the first time a member of the party in power dares to make such a statement. According to the same source, Saadani’s statement on the Western Sahara “put his life in jeopardy.”

In November 2015, Saadani made a public appearance on the Algerian TV Ennahar and made remarks that were interpreted as a call on Algeria to stop its support for the Polisario. After he refused to comment on the Sahara conflict “for fear that it would lead the country on a different path,” he said, “I have things to say in this affair but I will not tell them, because if I do, people will protest in the street.”

The statement angered the Algerian National Committee for Solidarity with the Saharawi People (CNASPS), which released a statement denouncing his remarks:

“The Algerian National Committee for Solidarity with the Saharawi People took note with real consternation of the declarations of Amar Saïdani, General Secretary of the FLN Party, to an Algerian television channel, concerning the conflict of the Western Sahara.”

The statement, published on French-speaking news source Algerie Patriotique, added that these statements “made in the Sibylline mode, consisting essentially of unspoken thoughts, allusive enough to be deciphered, place Mr. Saïdani at odds with the doctrine of FLN, which supported and helped seventeen African and non-African liberation movements.”

Saadani’s departure comes as the FLN prepares for legislative elections in 2017.

“The FLN, whose real boss is Bouteflika, wanted to make sure militants follow his instructions in the upcoming local elections,” one senior FLN member told Reuters. “It sounds that Saadani had started to become autonomous.”

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