Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika described on Tuesday as “ungrateful” people who deny the country’s achievements over the past 20 years.
“Nobody, no matter how ungrateful or unfair they are, can deny Algeria’s achievements in the last two decades in all the fields of development and reforms,” he said while defending his policies since he came to power in 1999.
Bouteflika, in a message to Algerians, presented the results of his work on the occasion of Labor Day. There have been growing voices in Algeria demanding that he run for a fifth term in the 2019 presidential elections.
Speaking on security in the country, Bouteflika said that Algeria “has recovered due to civil harmony in 1999 and national reconciliation in 2006.”
“We have made this blessing the beginning of the national construction – a project we set up in the context of the November 1, 1954 Declaration (the Revolution of Independence) and its objectives, which are aimed at building a democratic state with a social dimension within the framework of Islamic principles.”
“On the political level, the strengthening of our pluralistic democratic system and promotion of rights and liberties were crowned by 2016’s constitutional amendment,” he said,
Moreover, Algeria made progress in the field of education and social benefits, improved the people’s living standard and strengthened of its middle class, added Bouteflika.
The president also addressed the economic crisis in the country, saying: “The path of national construction has, for several years, been facing the effects of global economic fluctuations and the collapse of oil prices, which have weakened the state's financial capabilities.”
“Our country recorded, in the last two decades, a qualitative leap in the improvement of our agricultural capacities, creation of hundreds of thousands of medium-sized companies and the consolidation of our basic infrastructure,” he stressed.
“Faced with these conditions, we have been keen not to stop or reverse our developmental path and to adhere to the principles of our social policy.”
However, economists say the instability of the legal and regulatory framework and the bureaucracy of the Algerian investment system have alienated foreign businessmen and caused further economic recession.
