The infighting within Algeria’s ruling party is intensifying and threatening to splinter the party. As Algeria Politics & Security reports, some 118 MPs making up over half of the party’s seats in parliament, and calling themselves “militants”, are purportedly threatening outright rebellion.

Fighting within the Front de Libération Nationale (National Liberation Front, FLN) is an issue which, over the years, has become an almost permanent feature of the Algerian political landscape. Two weeks ago, six members of the FLN’s Central Committee released an open letter strongly criticising the party leadership and party Secretary-General Amar Saâdani in particular.

This last week, the infighting intensified further, to the extent that a group of Algeria’s ruling party MPs, claiming to number 118, called on President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in his capacity as honorary president of the FLN, to intervene and put the disintegrating party back on track.

Most of the issues that the group has brought to the president’s attention relate to various aspects of Saâdani’s running of the party, from his manipulation of new branch structures and his other alleged administrative excesses, to his “authoritarian and opaque management of the party […] contrary to democratic practice and the values of the FLN”. They warned that these issues were pushing Algeria’s ruling party towards collapse, and called on the members of the Central Committee to overcome their differences and put the interests of the party first.

Referring to themselves as “militants”, and pointing out that they account (if their figure of 118 is true) for half the FLN’s Deputies (216 in total), the group threatens to declare their rejection of any political authority that does not respect their will.

In last week’s issue of Algeria Politics & Security we mentioned that some of our sources suspected that these disaffected Algeria’s ruling party MPs might be thinking of joining up with El Kakhr (Pride), the alleged name of the new party that Ali Haddad is rumoured to be creating.

However, we are now hearing that some of these self-described FLN “militants”, many of whom are thought to have retained their loyalty to Ali Benflis since his days as prime minister (2001-2003), may be thinking of throwing in their lot with his new political party, named Talaiou El Houriyet, (Vanguard of Freedoms). This party is due to hold its founding Congress on 13-14 June, a mere six weeks away.

This article was taken from our Algeria Politics & Security publication.