'We want total systemic change': Algeria protesters reject president-elect

Ahead of his swearing-in scheduled for Thursday December 19, protesters have welcomed the new Algerian president Abdelmadjid Tebboune with more protests.

Thousands of Algerians took part in a march on Tuesday against the president-elect. The protestors accuse him of being close to former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika who was stepped down in April.

Tebboune served as a prime minister under Bouteflika for a seven-month period. Demonstrators even before the December 12 polls had opposed the vote demanding an overhaul of the country’s political system to get rid of old regime bureaucrats and officials.

Some of the protesters expressed their reservations to journalists: “We are on the street to change the system, they have not implemented our demands, if that were the case, the movement would have stopped.

“They changed people, but not ideas. We want them to change ideas and the whole system.”

Another said: “Thank God, the determination of students and people has not wavered, we are against dialogue without the release of prisoners, we are against this government’s attempt to manipulate to divide the popular movement..

The new president had called for dialogue and promised, among other things, to “amend the Constitution” and submit the new text to a referendum. But the demonstrators continue to reject the offer of dialogue.