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..." -------------- ¶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? -------------- ¶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 -------------- ¶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 -------------- ¶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