Veteran Algerian politicians are boycotting upcoming elections, reports Nabil Fawwaz from Algeria Four of Algeria's political leaders have decided to stay away from the 2009 presidential elections. Socialist Forces Front Party leader Hussein Ayat Ahmed, leader of the banned Islamic Salvation Front Abbasi Madani, independent politician Saad Abdallah Djaballah, and Secretary-General of the Rally for Culture and Democracy Said Sadi have all called on their supporters to boycott the coming elections. Madani, Djaballah, Sadi, and Ayat Ahmed were all members of underground organisations, spent time in prison, and became political figures during the months of political openness Algeria experienced in the early 1990s. Madani and Djaballah are Islamists with a pan-Arab agenda, whereas Ayat Ahmed and Sadi are secular with a Berber leaning nationalist agenda. Having taken part in the war of liberation, Ayat Ahmed disagreed with the leaders of the new regime after independence in 1962, opting for underground work and forming the Socialist Forces Front Party. He lives in Europe and was once quoted as saying that he would "die opposing the Algerian regime". A month ago, Madani, who has been living in Qatar since his release in 2003, told an Arab television network that he had no intention of running for president but wishes to see the Algerians boycott the coming elections. Embittered by the regime's constant attempts to blame him for the bloodshed of the 1990s, Madani seems to have lost his taste for Algerian politics at a time when two of his former FIS associates, Rabeh Kebir and Madani Mezrag, have reconciled with President Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika and urged the Algerian people to vote. Veteran opposition figure Djaballah is still active in Algerian political life, but has so far resisted calls for cooperation with the government. His party, the National Reform Movement, having made impressive gains in the legislative elections of 2002, was offered a place in the cabinet, but turned it down. Other parties, including the rival Society for Peace, eventually agreed to cooperate with the government. But to this day Djaballah, just like Madani, prefers to maintain an independent course. In 2004, he ran again for the presidency and came second. Having been ousted from the leadership of his party because of "corrective movements" that may have been orchestrated by the government, Djaballah has refrained from taking part in any further elections. He remains a man without a party, but some say that he retains hopes of one day leading the Islamic movement. Because of his open-minded approach, Sadi has been dismissed by his opponents as a representative of the "Party of France". Hussein Ayat Ahmed once said that Sadi was a creation of the intelligence services, brought to the scene to weaken the socialist movement. The French-language media in Algeria, however, fawns over Sadi, often describing him as a paragon of modernity and democracy. After Bouteflika came to power, Sadi was edged out of the picture. His boycott of the 9 April elections is therefore widely interpreted as an attempt to claw his way back onto the political stage. He is said to have been trying to build bridges with his follow Berber and former rival Hussein Ayat Ahmed, but a reconciliation seems unlikely for now. Other politicians boycotting the next elections include former foreign minister Ahmed Taleb Ibrahii who, like Ahmed and Djaballah, withdrew at the last moment from the 1999 presidential elections. Ibrahii was banned from running in the 2004 elections and denied permission to form his own party. Former prime minister Sid Ahmed Ghozali is also refusing to recognise next month's presidential election.
