Algerian demonstrators have vowed to continue mass protests against the government, saying the resignation of the president was not enough and demanding the fall of the entire regime.
Crowds celebrated in the streets of Algiers at the news that Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the country’s ailing 82-year-old president, had resigned after two decades in office and handed power to a caretaker government.
Yet, protesters said that the fall of Mr Bouteflika, who has rarely been seen in public since suffering a stroke in 2013, would not satisfy their demands for wholesale democratic reform in the north African country.
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“I’m not happy because we still have the same political system. I’m going to keep going out on Fridays until there’s a second republic,” said Saadia, a 30-year-old French-Algerian who joined a crowd near the University of Algiers.
The vast street demonstrations began six weeks ago in protest at the announcement that Mr Bouteflika planned to stand for a fifth term as president.
REUTERS/Louafi Larbi/File Photo
Algerian authorities were taken aback by the scale of the marches and on March 11 the government announced that Mr Bouteflika was withdrawing his candidacy.
The marches continued and last week the head of the army declared that Mr Bouteflika should step aside, making the president’s position untenable.
He resigned on Tuesday night, saying in a statement that he was stepping down out of respect for the “hearts and minds of my compatriots and to enable them to plan together for a better future for Algeria”.
The mass demonstrations are arguably the first successful demonstration of peaceful people power in the Middle East since Egyptians overthrew the Mubarak regime during the 2011 Revolution.
Since then, Syria, Libya, and Yemen have been consumed by war while protests have been violently suppressed in Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and Bahrain.
MOHAMED MESSARA/EPA-EFE/REX
The overthrow of Mr Bouteflika was hailed in rebel-held areas of Syria and by protesters in Sudan as a sign that the hope of the Arab Spring is not yet completely crushed.
While demonstrators savoured their victory on the streets of Algiers, it remains unclear what happens next and whether the government and the military are prepared to make more concessions towards democracy.
The head of the parliament, 76-year-old Abdelkader Bensalah, has taken over as acting president and under Algerian law the country should hold elections within 90 days. However, it is far from clear who will succeed Mr Bouteflika.
The demonstrators fear that although the president has been toppled, power will remain in the hands of the elite around him – a mixture of businessmen, members of the ruling National Liberation Front party, and aging veterans of 1950s independence war against France.
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The military, which has repeatedly intervened in Algerian politics in past decades, may also play a decisive role in what comes next. The military has said its “sole ambition” is to protect the public from a circle of government leaders who have “unduly taken over the wealth of the Algerian people”.
The uprising in the strategically located, oil-rich state has been closely watched by world powers. The US State Department said it was “for the Algerian people to decide” the future of the country.
Russia, which historically was a close ally of Mr Bouteflika’s government, said Western powers should not interfere in the transition in Algeria.
A spokesman for Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general, said: "He looks forward to a peaceful and democratic transition process that reflects the wishes of the Algerian people.”