Algeria: Who benefits from Tebboune’s absence? Chengriha or his successor?
With lots of speculation and little information on the whereabouts of President Abdelmajid Tebboune, his mysterious lengthy absence starts raising serious questions about possible political manoeuvres taking place behind the scenes of the opaque military-intelligence regime.
In an attempt to reassure both Algerian and international public opinion, Tebboune’s ministers are trying hard to keep up appearances, giving the false impression that things are under control and doing business as usual.
The sudden disappearance from public view of the Head of State comes at a time the Algerian rulers started feeling the heat over the Sahara issue is fueling tension and uncertainty across the country, which is becoming more and more like “an open-air prison”.
In its latest report on human rights situation, the State Department decried increased repression, notably of the freedom of expression and association.
The 19-page country report cites alarming human rights issues including disappearances; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; arbitrary arrest and detention; serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including violence or threats of violence against journalists, unjustified arrests and prosecutions of journalists, and censorship; restrictions of religious freedom; trafficking in persons, including forced labor; and violence or threats against labor activists or union members.
Amid these serious human rights violations and sufferings from acute shortage of basic needs and declining economic activities due to restrictions imposed by authorities on imports to save depleting hard currency reserves, Algerians rushed massively to social media networks to post millions of videos expressing their concerns and asking where their president is.
Some foreign intelligence reports suspect the ruling military junta to be behind his unexplained disappearance as President Tebboune was planning to dismiss army chief Said Chengriha and appoint pro-West General Mohamed Kaidi in his place.
Kaidi is one of the few Algerian generals who speaks English. More importantly, he has a crucial relationship with France, having served as Algeria’s special military attaché to France and being in the Elysée in January 2013. It was Kaïdi who arranged Algerian overfly rights and other logistical arrangements on behalf of Paris to enable France to launch a military intervention in Mali that year.
His importance caused tension and jealousy with Chengriha, who saw Kaïdi as someone who might replace him. Kaïdi’s dismissal was announced on 10 November 2021, exactly two weeks after he represented Algeria at the 5+5 Chiefs of Staff Defense meeting held in Nouakchott.
The 5+5 grouping includes representatives from the five states of the north shore of the Western Mediterranean (Spain, France, Italy, Malta, and Portugal) and those of the South Shore (Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Tunisia).
During his address at that meeting, Kaïdi had expressed a desire to strengthen Algeria’s military and security arrangements with European and Western powers. He had also alluded that Algiers would not trigger any hostile military action against Morocco, insisting on the importance of a “good neighborly foreign policy”, brushing aside the current regime’s aggressive and warlike language towards Morocco, France and the EU.
He had also voiced a commitment to a new modernist vision that seeks to bring Algeria closer to the West that would entail a new cooperation offering new opportunities.
He was generally regarded as the logical successor to the late General Ahmed Gaïd Salah as the Chief of Army Staff. However, he was dismissed in November 2021 on the orders of Chengriha, and was arrested a month later.
Kaïdi’s release and reinstatement was one of the key demands made by US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman during her 10 March 2022 visit to Algiers, and again by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his 30 March visit to Algiers the same year.
Now with the mounting pressure on the Algerian regime from all sides, especially from Washington and France, Kaidi’s name pops up again, while Tebboune is nowhere in sight. But for how long!