Louisa Hanoune: “The atheist woman before a gnome dictator”

Sorry, the quote was just too good not to put in the headline. I noted when the Algerian Presidential election occurred that its most interesting result was not that Bouteflika won (or the sun came up in the East that day), but that a woman for the first time ran in second place in an Arab Presidential election. Now The Moor Next Door, who blogs mostly about Algeria and keeps me honest by commenting frequently here as well, has a very good post on Louisa Hanoune, the Trotskyite woman Algerian Presidential candidate (five words that probably won't Google up any other names than hers) who ran second to Bouteflika.

According to his post, in one Algerian village a graffito was seen saying, “The atheist woman before a gnome dictator.” (Bouteflika is short.) That's the source of the headline above.

I mean no offense to President Bouteflika in quoting the line, but it's really quite revealing.