Un bilan porteur d’espoirs et de réalisations

A report bearing hopes and achievements

Tebboune Presidency

The term of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is coming to an end soon and we are heading towards presidential elections next September. It is time to take stock of the Presidency. It must be recognized that the beginnings were difficult since this first term was weighed down by the Covid-19 crisis which brought Algeria to a standstill, like the entire planet, and the President himself fell ill. Nevertheless, once the crisis was over, the achievements in different sectors ranging from the economy to diplomacy where Algeria shone, were positive. President Tebboune put in place very important measures, setting a course consisting of preserving the social character of the State and encouraging its development. He focused on local production by reducing imports and combating the informal sector. He strengthened purchasing power, he granted social benefits, such as unemployment benefits, and on the economic front, many projects were successfully completed. It is not an easy task to have a clear vision on the economic level knowing that the residues of Issaba continue to work to undermine the work of the President. Nevertheless, it can be said that the mandate that is ending was that of a President who was paving his way and sowing the seeds of a responsible and constructive policy for the country.
On the other hand, we see that there is no political offer, and the inertia and lethargy of political actors cannot be blamed on the President. No program, no perspective in terms of governance from the parties that do not even make up the numbers. They are nowhere to be seen. The popular uprising of 2019 showed us that there was no political life, nor any associative life, except for a few rare exceptions. This leads us to think about a reconfiguration of the political class inherited from the old multiparty system. This new reconfiguration of political parties should be built in the form of families and ideological currents rather than having empty shell parties that serve no purpose and have politics only in name. We must move on from the destructive era of Issaba. Every patriot must strive to breathe new life into the political process in order to give rise to a new vision of politics. Politics includes proposing coherent programs and forming a real and patriotic opposition, and not arguing in the void by fighting windmills on social networks or even arguing while being paid by foreign intelligence services. On the same subject, the country also needs an effective associative network that can be a lifesaver in times of unrest and Algeria is targeted from all sides.
Algeria has gone through several phases that were catastrophic for the country with the black decade followed by the twenty years of rule of the former President, which resulted in a popular uprising. We have come a long way, because the State has faltered and could have collapsed. Rebuilding the nation-state, the civilization-state, is an arduous task and this is what President Tebboune has begun to achieve. Much has already been done, particularly internally at the economic and social level, where the President has given many guarantees in terms of good governance, particularly to the popular and disadvantaged classes, but also at the international level where Algeria maintains and even strengthens its positions of principle by supporting the just causes of the Palestinian and Sahrawi peoples. On the domestic level, President Tebboune has ensured to strengthen national security by focusing on the middle and disadvantaged classes of society to whom he has provided assistance, which constitutes an investment. There is no doubt that there will be a return on investment in the second term.
President Tebboune’s candidacy for a second term is strategic. Why? When we look at the world, we see that many presidents have been reappointed, and the chaotic situation that humanity is experiencing under the threat of a world war, even a nuclear one, requires having heads of state who are well aware of current issues. A strategic status quo with the continuity of Tebboune’s governance is therefore essential to navigate the troubled waters of this extremely perilous period. This second term must, however, move towards the better, and this is what the President announced in several speeches in which he predicted that we would reap the fruits of the work started in 2027. Therefore, the second term will be one of achievements. It will be important not only for the stability of the country but also for that of the entire region including the Sahel and the Mediterranean basin. The election of the President is not an adventure, on the contrary, it is a realistic guarantee of stability, unlike a leap into the unknown. As Gramsci said, we must have the optimism of the will. Let us remember that the President announced that he wanted to continue his work of reconstruction.
It is very difficult to rebuild a country ravaged by twenty years of sabotage, to give meaning to governance if we do not have efficient tools. It is therefore essential to offer the President a good entourage with competent men who master the files and who are able to help him in his task, and not people who could bring us back to situations like those we have known in the past. The President needs talented people around him. The world is changing and amateurism is not an option. Algeria can no longer be satisfied with tinkering as in the past and it requires people capable of anticipating. Let those who are not able to carry out their task as advisors leave their posts and make way for people who are up to the task and understand global issues. During this short three-year term, despite a start paralyzed by Covid-19 and in a tense international context, many achievements have seen the light of day. Algeria, an emerging country, is on the way to becoming a power, with macro and micro economic indicators pointing in this direction.
At the diplomatic level, Algeria has marked its presence among nations in relation to the conflict in occupied Palestine, as well as concerning the issue of Western Sahara, particularly against our enemy in the West which has become an Israeli base. And so, the climate is very tense. This has not prevented Algeria from proving that it is a country of principles and that it has only one word. It has always defended just causes and it will continue to do so.

President Tebboune has popularity
There are, however, “opponents”, although there is no opposition in Algeria. These are remnants of the Issaba who have allied themselves with different movements such as the terrorist organizations “Rachad” and the “MAK” and who will continue to want to destabilize the country by using tactics intended to break it economically by constituting lobbies to strike it. It is clear that the informal sector is a tool in the hands of these criminals that must be fought mercilessly. We must move forward and not leave the ground to a fifth column that is recruited from the Islamists and other forces that want to harm the country and that are corrupting society. The Issaba remnants do not disarm and are engaged in “resistance” which is rather treason by undermining practically all the President’s initiatives, which requires the establishment of mechanisms to effectively combat these evil renegades in order to uproot them from the various administrations and decision-making structures. There is a real urgency to neutralize these Issaba remnants who refuse to allow Algeria to move forward and who want to install a climate of uprising and insurrection aimed at the dismantling of our country.
On the security front, Algeria remains a key player and gives signs of stability to the whole world and in particular to international investors. President Tebboune has left his mark on it to the extent that we can see work being done professionally in the various security sectors: police, gendarmerie, intelligence services. Everything is being put in place smoothly and without any fuss. We must overcome the blows that Issaba has dealt to our intelligence services and our Army. The remnants of Issaba will not disarm, but let them know that neither will the patriots.
The second term will be the culmination of the achievements implemented during Mr. Tebboune’s governance and we will reap the fruits of his work. Knowing this and seeing that much progress and advances have already taken place, we can only be pleased with the President’s re-election. Social gains are intact, the public sector has retained its power and the private sector has begun to develop a national economy where we can produce locally.
Of course, we must always remain vigilant, but the President knows the situation in the country better than anyone else since he has governed, and, importantly, he reassures the people. Although his popularity is great, we must be wary of the phenomenon of abstention, which remains an unresolved problem. This issue has always been a problem in Algeria and it would be useful to find mechanisms to combat it and bring Algerians back to politics and voting. For this, a political offer is needed, and that of President Tebboune is the best at the moment, because it is based on a vision and a course, and then, it offers hope, which is why we should not change a winning team, as the saying goes.
We are not in a time of rupture but in that of a consensus towards continuity with the patriotic forces of the nationalist line, the one that brought the independence of the country, to move towards the construction of a new and emerging Algeria. We are on the right track, figures and analyses sometimes coming from large international organizations confirm this. It is the nationalist current that must be the spearhead of President Tebboune’s governance.
Of course, we must continue to safeguard the public sector and provide a roadmap to the private sector that will ensure that economic patriotism is applied. It would be useful to find a mechanism, for example, the change of currency, which could be a solution to eradicate the informal sector – and I am thinking of the billions buried in hidden containers – which is deadly for the country.
Money must be a lever for development rather than a vector of instability or even an instrument of political pressure, because the bigwigs of the informal sector are very dangerous traitors to the nation who can provoke uprisings as we saw with the orange revolutions, supported by their masters from across the oceans, and bring the country back into a situation of great turbulence.