{"id":208002,"date":"2019-04-01T04:38:36","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T08:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=208002"},"modified":"2019-04-01T04:38:36","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T08:38:36","slug":"algerian-president-names-new-government-keeps-army-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/04\/01\/algerian-president-names-new-government-keeps-army-chief\/","title":{"rendered":"Algerian president names new government, keeps army chief"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_208003\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-208003\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/640px-Cristina_Ferna\u0301ndez_de_Kirchner_and_Abdelaziz_Bouteflika.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-208003\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/640px-Cristina_Ferna\u0301ndez_de_Kirchner_and_Abdelaziz_Bouteflika.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"448\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/640px-Cristina_Ferna\u0301ndez_de_Kirchner_and_Abdelaziz_Bouteflika.jpg 640w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/640px-Cristina_Ferna\u0301ndez_de_Kirchner_and_Abdelaziz_Bouteflika-300x210.jpg 300w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/640px-Cristina_Ferna\u0301ndez_de_Kirchner_and_Abdelaziz_Bouteflika-20x14.jpg 20w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-208003\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">FILE: Abdelaziz Bouteflika meets the President of Argentina, Cristina Fern\u00e1ndez de Kirchner. (<a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=5221602\">Photo By Presidencia de la Naci\u00f3n Argentina\/Wikimedia commons, CC BY 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"p1\">ALGIERS, Algeria \u2014 Algeria&#8217;s powerful army chief retained his post in a newly-named government despite his call to have ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika declared unfit for office.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Algerian national television announced Sunday night that Bouteflika and Prime Minister Noureddine Bedoui named a new government after weeks of mass protests and political tensions in this gas-rich North African country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The new government notably keeps Ahmed Gaid Salah as army chief of staff and vice defence minister.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Gaid Salah shocked the nation with his call last week for the constitutional council to set in motion a process to end Bouteflika&#8217;s 20-year presidency. Critics accused Gaid Salah of trying to orchestrate a coup, and the army chief suggested Saturday that unnamed figures were plotting against him as a result of his stand against Bouteflika&#8217;s presidency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Millions of Algerians have been holding weekly protests demanding that Bouteflika leave office along with the distrusted political elite. Algerians have barely seen their president, now 82, since a 2013 stroke.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Also Sunday, a top Algerian businessman was arrested at an Algerian border post as he was apparently trying to go to Tunisia, Algerian media reported.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Journalists at tycoon Ali Haddad&#8217;s private television channel Dzair News said he was arrested overnight in Oum Tboul, close to the Tunisian border.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Haddad, long a backer of Bouteflika, resigned this week as head of Algeria&#8217;s Business Forum, apparently trying to distance himself from the unpopular leader whose government has been accused of corruption.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Bouteflika withdrew from running for a new term but cancelled Algeria&#8217;s April 18 presidential election. Pressure has mounted for him to step down before his current term expires later this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ALGIERS, Algeria \u2014 Algeria&#8217;s powerful army chief retained his post in a newly-named government despite his call to have ailing &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":208003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-aomar-ouali","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208004,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208002\/revisions\/208004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}