THE TROUBLED MARRIAGE OF BOUTEFLIKA AND OUYAHIA

C O N F I D E N T I A L ALGIERS 000926

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/21/2018
TAGS: PGOV PREL AG
SUBJECT: THE TROUBLED MARRIAGE OF BOUTEFLIKA AND OUYAHIA

REF: ALGIERS 728

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires, a.i. Thomas F. Daughton;
reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) SUMMARY: The initial fanfare surrounding the June 23
return of Ahmed Ouyahia to the prime minister's chair has
given way to a period of uncertainty and rumored tension
between Ouyahia and President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. The
atmosphere has observers suggesting that Ouyahia was not
Bouteflika's choice for the job and that their professional
marriage suffers from irregular and forced communication. A
reliable source at the Presidency confirmed on August 18 that
Bouteflika informed Ouyahia of his appointment by phone,
while "standard practice" for Bouteflika's previous prime
ministers -- Ahmed Benbitour, Ali Benflis and Abdelaziz
Belkhadem -- was for the two men to meet for "at least half a
day" prior to the official announcement of the nomination. A
photo of a crouching Ouyahia holding Bouteflika's hands and
looking up at him, which was splashed across the front pages
of many Algerian dailies on June 24 and 25, was actually
taken in 2005 during Ouyahia's last stint as PM. While our
contacts agree that Ouyahia is a hard-working and
accomplished technocrat capable of manipulating the
bureaucracy, they also assert that he has far less regular
contact with Bouteflika than his predecessors and did not
have a single face-to-face meeting in Ouyahia's first month
on the job. Given Bouteflika's jealous hold on
decision-making at the Presidency, Ouyahia's first two months
suggest deepening confusion and stagnation rather than the
bureaucratic catharsis many had hoped for. END SUMMARY.

"HELLO, NEWMAN..."
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2. (C) Under the state of emergency in place in Algeria since
1992, the president and prime minister are required to be
present once a month at the High Council of Security.
Outside of that, according to Arslan Chikhaoui, a consultant
affiliated with Ouyahia's National Democratic Rally (RND),
Ouyahia did not meet with Bouteflika at all during his first
month as PM. That was echoed by Abdelhamid Bakli of the
National Institute for Global and Strategic Studies (INESG),
a think tank attached to the Presidency, who told us that
"there is no honeymoon atmosphere" between the two men, who
"do not have any natural affinities or common values." Other
than their encounter at the High Council on Security, since
late June Bouteflika and Ouyahia have met only at the Council
of Ministers, another mandatory occasion that usually occurs
monthly.

WOULD THE REAL AHMED OUYAHIA PLEASE STAND UP?
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3. (C) For Mustapha Hammouche, columnist at the
French-language daily Liberte, it is "unbelievable how
reputations can be overrated." Hammouche told us on August
18 that the initial press love-in for Ouyahia -- praising him
as a liberal reformer capable of action -- made him "sick"
given Ouyahia's recent statements threatening to restrict
foreign investment to deals in which an Algerian partner
holds a majority share. Ghania Oukazi of the respected
French-language daily Quotidien d'Oran told us on August 18
that the "jury is still out" on Ouyahia. Oukazi wrote an
August 14 article entitled "The Long Days of Ahmed Ouyahia"
that described Ouyahia's known penchant for starting early
and working well into the night, when "other prime ministers
take naps." She Commented to us that the early September
"rentree sociale" (period at the start of the school year
when families return from vacation and Ramadan begins) would
be Ouyahia's true test, a time to "see if his well-known
efforts bear any fruit."

AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE
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4. (C) Louisa ait Hamadouche, a teacher of political science
at Algiers University, repeated to us on August 18 what many
take for granted: that Ouyahia's influence "is due to his
special relationship with the army and security services" --
a relationship, said ait Hamadouche, "in which he seems to
take pride." She went on to denounce the "efficiency myth"
trumpeted by the media about Ouyahia immediately following
his nomination, saying "there are plenty of dedicated
ministers and civil servants, who just don't benefit from the
same treatment." Dalila Smail, a reporter for the state-run
national radio, offered an insight into why the army and
security services were intent on installing one of their own
as prime minister. She recalled then-Prime Minister
Belkhadem's May 2008 public statement that "Algerian society
is deeply attached to the Holy Qur'an, which represents its
constitution." According to Smail, the statement made the
military "grit its teeth" and may have represented "the last
straw" for Algeria's generals. Smail called the Islamist
Belkhadem "a temporary necessity" for Bouteflika to win
popular acceptance for his program of national
reconciliation, but that the ongoing threat of instability
from terrorism around the country now had made viewpoints
like Belkhadem's "intolerable" to the generals who control
the security services.

COMMENT: COUPLES THERAPIST WANTED
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5. (C) With the Ouyahia's initial media honeymoon now over,
our contacts project a more somber mood, describing political
stagnation and dysfunction that continues but has merely
changed in form. While Ouyahia appears more capable than
Belkhadem of "working the system" to push changes through the
bureaucracy, his erratic public statements and distant
relationship with the president during his first two months
on the job suggest that Bouteflika has afforded him neither a
mandate nor basic instructions to implement any kind of rapid
change. RND member Mohamed Laichoubi conceded that "Ouyahia
was an obvious choice" for prime minister given the "poor
socio-economic accomplishments" of Belkhadem's tenure. But
he added that the hopes of frustrated Algerians rest on
Ouyahia's ability to address high food prices and basic
socio-economic despair during the coming month of Ramadan and
the beginning of the school year, "when Algerians see clearly
what affects their daily lives."
DAUGHTON