Algeria protests: Finding a voice, youth seek more than token change
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was an independence war fighter who drove out the occupying French, built a prosperous economy, ended a decade-old civil war that killed scores of thousands in the 1990s, and healed a nation.
He and his party, the National Liberation Front, or FLN, were supposed to be remembered as heroes in Algeria.
Yet as protests that erupted over the octogenarian’s intention to run for yet another term as president of Algeria morphed into demands for an overhaul of the entire political system, Mr. Bouteflika and the ruling class are finding themselves increasingly out of touch with the Algeria they built.
Armed with lessons they learned from the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings and fueled by demands for better living conditions, young Algerians are no longer deferring to their founding fathers.
As they fill the streets in protest, deflecting as inadequate an initial offer by Mr. Bouteflika to reverse course and not seek
From peacemaker to punchlineA turning pointLessons from the SpringGeneration gapRegion on notice