Bouteflika Makes it Official

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has officially announced that he is running for a third term. Since all the major opposition candidates had already announced they were sitting out a race they considered had a foregone conclusion, this is hardly a surprise, though as I noted in an earlier posting, there are still some questions about Bouteflika's health.

At this point the other announced candidates are from fringe parties or independent nonentities; no major political figures are challenging Bouteflika in the April vote, which will therefore likely be even more one-sided than the 2004 elections, when he at least had a serious challenger in the person of former Prime Minister Ali Benflis, but still won by 85%.