Friday Anti-establishment Protests Continue in Algeria

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Algiers, Algeria’s capital city, on April 26 in what’s become a weekly protest calling for sweeping changes to the country’s system of governance. The protests, which began in February, pressured an ailing Abdelaziz Bouteflika to reverse his decision to run for a fifth term as president, and led the country’s military to pressure him to step down immediately, paving the way for Abdelkader Bensalah, who leads the upper house of parliament, to take over as interim president, with new elections set for July 4. Yet the protesters are not satisfied with this, either, saying Bensalah is part of the powerful ruling clique that Bouteflika created and that this clique must go, together with the constitution that has kept its members at the helm of government and the economy.