CABINET RESHUFFLE BRINGS OUYAHIA BACK

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 ALGIERS 000728 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/24/2018 TAGS: PREL PGOV EAIR ECON AG SUBJECT: CABINET RESHUFFLE BRINGS OUYAHIA BACK REF: A. ALGIERS 509 ¶B. ALGIERS 704 Classified By: Deputy Chief of Mission Thomas F. Daughton; reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: The AlgeriantopkQ/2QW]Qz&p_QQUQJune 23 a long-rumored cabinet reshuffle that catapulted Ahmed Ouyahia back into the prime minister's chair for the third time. Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem was downgraded to minister of state without portfolio, a role unlikely to represent a step forward in Belkhadem's political career. The appointment of new ministers of transportation and health, both cabinet stalwarts who tend to espouse old-school socialist points of view, does not bode well for progress towards an Open Skies agreement and the resolution of intellectual property disputes in the pharmaceutical industry. By contrast, the new telecommunications minister brings an extensive technical and sector-specific resume to the table, representing the most developed business perspective in the cabinet to date. Other moves announced included internal reshuffling at agriculture and finance, and a modification of portfolios at the ministry of national solidarity. The big winner in the minor reshuffle was Ouyahia, whose longer-term prospects in the Algerian leadership brightened considerably. END SUMMARY. HE'S BA-ACK! -------------- ¶2. (C) Ahmed Ouyahia's star has been publicly rising again for over two months (ref A),with a series of international trips as Bouteflika's personal representative possibly serving as his warm-up to move back into the prime minister's chair. Ouyahia, the head of the coalition member National Democratic Rally (RND),now begins his third mandate as prime minister, having served in the role from 1994-1999 under President Lamine Zeroual and again under Bouteflika from 2003-2006. Even after he was pushed aside in 2006 to make way for Belkhadem, Ouyahia was "never really out of the picture," in the words of JOURNALIST Rosa Mansouri of the French-language daily Le Soir d'Algerie, given his strong ties to the army leadership and security services. The perception that Ouyahia was being rehabilitated has been growing since early April as he represented Bouteflika overseas at summit meetings and conferences in New Delhi, New York and Ghana, among other places. ¶3. (C) Born in 1952, Ouyahia began his career as a diplomat, specializing in African issues. He joined the MFA in 1978, Ouyahia served in Cote d'Ivoire from 1981, moving on the Algerian mission to the UN in New York in 1984. He became Algeria's co-representative to the Security Council in 1988, then returned to Algiers to serve as Director General of African Affairs at the MFA. In 1992 he became Ambassador to Mali, helping negotiate a peace agreement between the Malian government and a Tuareg rebel group. Given the current Algerian intent to reengage on the Algiers Accords (ref B), the addition of Ouyahia's personal experience with the region can only strengthen this engagement. ¶4. (C) Ouyahia's career became decidedly more political when he was nominated as President Liamine Zeroual's chief of staff in 1994, then serving in his first of two stints as prime minister from 1994 to 1999. He became the head of the RND party in 2000, serving as minister of justice during Bouteflika's first term and passing the aggressive Penal Code of 2001, which is considered tough on Islamist activities. Bouteflika also tasked Ouyahia with working on the peace negotiations between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and a deal was signed in Algiers in December 2000. Ouyahia served a second mandate as prime minister from 2003 to 2006, resigning over political differences with Bouteflika's flagship National Liberation Front (FLN) party. OLD FACES, NEW SEATS -------------- ¶5. (C) Health Minister Amar Tou traded his post to become the new minister of transportation. Former Minister of Transportation Mohammed Maghlaoui is believed to be in failing health and received no new assignment. Agriculture Minister Said Barakat moved to replace Tou at Health. ALGIERS 00000728 002 OF 004 Neither move represents a progressive step forward, as both Tou and Barakat are old-time loyalists adept at towing the party line. Some of our JOURNALIST contacts joke about Tou's inability to communicate effectively, as he has often gotten himself into trouble with the press. Tou himself prefers a centralized, controlling management style, and had suppressed the communication division at the health ministry, declaring that he would handle communication himself. Tou has not been receptive to meeting requests and program engagement opportunities from the Embassy. While we believe that some of his reticence towards us stemmed from the sensitivity of the health sector as a whole, his move to the ministry of transportation is unlikely to represent a step forward in our relationship with that ministry, including our stalled efforts to conclude an Open Skies agreement. ¶6. (C) Barakat, the new health minister, is a physician who brings tangible medical experience to his new ministry. He hails from Biskra and studied medicine at the University of Algiers. Our contacts in the medical community have long expressed their desire to have an actual doctor at the helm of the health ministry. Barakat is known as a discreet official and a centralized manager, with an anachronistic socialist mentality reminscent of Tou's. One business contact in the dairy industry told the Ambassador the story of his encounter with Barakat, in which our contact offered to import dairy cows to ease Algeria's milk crisis. The deal fell through because Barakat insisted that the cows and part of the milk produced would have to belong to the workers who milk them. Barakat was also lampooned in the press during Ramadan 2007 for the potato crisis, in which he had brokered a deal for the importation of thousands of tons of potatoes, most of which turned out to be rotten or of poor quality. A RAY OF HOPE FOR TELECOMS? -------------- ¶7. (C) Algeria's rapidly growing telecom sector may benefit the most from the cabinet reshuffle. Minister of Post and Telecommunications Boudjemaa Haichour left his post and has no new assignment. Haichour is a writer, poet and historian, and did not bring significant industry experience to his work. He bore the brunt of media criticism for the recent scandal over Algerie Telecom's unpaid bills, when prominent business leaders cast doubt on the accuracy of the billing process. Following the scandal, Algerie Telecom slashed its internet prices dramatically in an effort to improve competitivity and its corporate image. ¶8. (C) Minister of Post and Telecommunications Hamid Bessalah, new to the cabinet, is a telecommunications professional who brings a wealth of industry expertise and experience to the table. Bessalah was formerly director general of the Development Center of Advanced Techniques, a research and development center focusing on telecom technology and robotics. In a recent meeting of the Council of Ministers, contacts on a minister's staff told us that Bouteflika expressed his dismay that internet penetration stood at a mere eight percent in Algeria. Bessalah will have internet development at the top of his agenda, along with the privatization of part or all of Algerie Telecom, whose long search for a "strategic partner" has been well documented in the Algerian press. With his industry experience, Bessalah may represent the most evolved business perspective of any minister, which might prove useful in advancing reforms to improve the investment climate. NATIONAL SOLIDARITY ADDS NEW PORTFOLIO -------------- ¶9. (C) Minister of National Solidarity Djamel Ould Abbes remains in his position, adding the Algerian community abroad to his portfolio. Nouarra Saadia Djaffar will be Ould Abbes' minister-delegate handling this new mandate. Ould Abbes was born in Tlemcen, near the Moroccan border, and graduated from Leipzig University in East Germany. A physician by trade, he founded the Algerian medical union in 1971 and has been its president since 1979. Elected to parliament in 1982, he became minister of national solidarity in 2006. INTERNAL MOVES AT AGRICULTURE AND FINANCE -------------- ALGIERS 00000728 003 OF 004 ¶10. (C) Rachid Benaissa, formerly a minister-delegate at the agriculture ministry, was promoted on June 23 to be the new agriculture minister. Born in the province of Bou Saada, he has an extensive background in the agricultural sector and in the ministry. He served as private secretary to the minister from 1994-2000 and as Secretary General of the ministry from 2000-2002. Benaissa is a veterinarian by trade and has been the minister-delegate of rural development since 2002. ¶11. (C) Minister-delegate for Financial Reform Fatiha Mentouri has been relieved of her duties. Mentouri is a good Embassy contact and had a reputation for being forward-leaning and progressive on reform issues. A reliable source at the Presidency told us that Mentouri's relationship with Finance Minister Karim Djoudi has grown tense as Djoudi felt threatened by Mentouri's rising star within the ministry. Mentouri's removal has had a small but immediate impact on Embassy business: we were to meet with her staff on June 24 to discuss details and logistics of an upcoming cooperation program involving Treasury's Office of Overseas Technical Assistance (OTA) and the Small Business Administration (SBA). Her chief of staff emailed us late June 23 that said simply, "because of the ministerial reshuffling, our meeting must be postponed." In a telephone call on June 24, he said there was no indication of who might replace Mentouri, and suggested that her position may simply be eliminated with the portfolio folded back into the direct oversight of the finance minister. COMMENT: NOT JUST MUSICAL CHAIRS -------------- ¶12. (S) We can expect significant differences in our relations with a government led by Ouyahia. His predecessor Belkhadem is a strong Arab nationalist of the 1970s tint and a conservative Islamist as well. (He recently told the press that Shari'a is the constitution of Algerian society.) He is rigid and has sought to crush dissent within his FLN party. Belkhadem has been sharply critical of U.S. policy in Iraq and confrontational on our bilateral relations on issues ranging from Guantanamo to spurring democratic opening. It is no secret in Algiers that the control-oriented Belkhadem dislikes the Embassy's outreach to political parties, the Algerian press and NGOs. ¶13. (S) Ouyahia also wants to dominate and control; he is a calculating man of the system and is deliberate in measuring how much change can advance. His RND party is managed with tight and clean efficiency from the top down. That said, the English-speaking former diplomat is more nuanced in his approach on foreign policy issues like Iraq and the Arab-Israeli dispute. Unlike Belkhadem (who used to hang out with the Iranian ambassador before the Algerian government closed the embassy in 1991),Ouyahia strongly distrusts the Iranians. It is hard to imagine Ouyahia shifting Algerian policy much on the Western Sahara, but he is more likely to do so than the doctrinaire Belkhadem. And while Belkhadem has no understanding of market economics, Ouyahia's inner circle of advisors readily tell us in private that Algeria has to move ahead on economic reform by taking steps, for example, to join the WTO. Given the choice between Belkhadem and Ouyahia, certainly almost all of the younger Algerian business class who want faster economic change will grudgingly prefer Ouyahia to Belkhadem as the lesser of two evils (though neither one appears to enjoy widespread popular support). That said, Ouyahia is no free-wheeling liberal economist; he recently criticized foreign banks operating in Algeria for not helping investment -- ignoring the billions of dollars in loans to the energy sector from Citicorp, for example. Ouyahia is also unlikely to dramatically open up the political system to more genuine competition. ¶14. (S) Sensitive to any moves at the top, Algerians are now asking the broader question of what the prime ministerial change signals for the future. For over a year, rumors have swirled about plans to amend the constitution to permit the ailing Bouteflika to seek a third term, or possibly to extend his existing mandate. The complete lack of movement on the amendment -- first bruited by Bouteflika in 2005 -- has been taken as a sign of a continuing struggle within the senior leadership over who will succeed Bouteflika. Contacts who themselves talk to officials close to Bouteflika agree that the president would prefer for Belkhadem to succeed him. ALGIERS 00000728 004 OF 004 Family is very important to Bouteflika, and Belkhadem has an established modus vivendi with Bouteflika's brothers who are enmeshed in various kinds of private business. The most common refrain we have heard is that Belkhadem would leave the Bouteflika family alone in return for the presidential chair. ¶15. (S) Ouyahia, in contrast, has been widely thought to be the preferred choice of the head of military intelligence, LTG Toufik Mediene. Many of our contacts say Bouteflika personally dislikes the younger and assertive Ouyahia. Ouyahia's recent and rapid rehabilitation suggests that the struggle over a successor has finally been resolved, with General Mediene's candidate coming out on top. The print media and our parliamentary contacts now speculate that a constitutional amendment will be introduced and passed in the next few weeks. If they're right, the form of the amendment -- perhaps a simple extension of Bouteflika's term until 2011 -- will clarify Ouyahia's new standing, but for the moment his longer-term future in the Algerian leadership is looking considerably brighter. FORD