By UMAR AbdurRahman
Protests have continued in Algeria amidst successes as another pillar stepped down, in person of Mouad Bouchareb, the Algerian parliamentary president on demands of overhauling the political system and the departure of Bouteflika-era officials, including interim President Abdelkader Ben salah, who is also a pillar of the ruling elite.
Protesters, especially youth, are seeking the departure of senior figures, including politicians and people in business, who have governed the North African country since independence from France in 1962. Thousands of French-Algerians also protests weekly in Place de la Republique in solidarity with the Algerian demonstration.
The protesters successfully saw the stepping down of the ailing long time president Abdelaziz Bouteflika three months ago and on Tuesday, the Algerian parliamentary president Mouad Bouchareb also quited, after prolonged demands for his removal by protesters who saw him as a pillar of the ruling elite.
In recent days, pressure from politicians mounted against Bouchareb to step down as well, after protesters called him an "illegitimate speaker".
Armed forces chief Lieutenant-General Ahmed Gaed Salah, who has been managing the transition, has since called on parties and protesters to meet among themselves to discuss a way out of the crisis. He also called for the prosecution of officials accused of corruption, sparking arrests of former allies of Bouteflika.
However, Salah – who has become the de facto strongest man in the country – has not explained an alternative solution after the cancellation of presidential elections that was to be held on 4 July because of the lack of candidates and their rejection by the protest movement.
Algeria, known as "the country of martyrs" across the Arab world as the resistance movement cost an estimated one million Algerian lives.
How much good would today resistance bring, would it fall to a more secular system of democracy as the media and France, her colonial master demands or the traditional Islamic system of justice before the arrival of the colonialist?