Tensions are mounting in Côte d'Ivoire with less than six weeks of the presidential election, scheduled for October 31.
Ivorian media reported on Sunday, September 20, that the opposition has decided to engage in a standoff with President Alassane Ouattara to obtain the withdrawal of his candidacy for a third term and a rethinking of the electoral process.
Former head of state and leader of the Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI), Henri Konan Bédié, has led the movement by calling for 'civil disobedience'. Two days later, Pascal Affi N'Guessan, whose candidacy was however validated by the Constitutional Council, gave him his support.
However, Adama Bictogo the executive director of the Rassemblement des Houphouëtistes pour la Democratie et la Paix (RHDP, in power) argues that this pressure does not change the strategy of the presidential party; 'The election will take place on October 31. And President Alassane Ouattara will be there. '
'It's really not our concern. It's the call of a desperate man who has no political offer. It is also the expression of liability and failure. The opposition is not ready to participate in this competition, so they believe that everything must be questioned. But we are right in our boots. Technically, legally, everything is in place for us to go to the elections,' Bictogo said in reaction to the call for civil disobedience.
Reacting to the preconditions set by the opposition to participate in the October Presidential elections, Bictogo said The problem with this opposition is that it is neither constant nor consistent. A few days ago, the PDCI announced its participation in the central commission of the Independent Electoral Commission [CEI]. He was finally conspicuous by his absence. One day, the opposition goes to the elections, the other not ⦠Once an actor has agreed to submit his candidacy file, he cannot question the entire process.'
The ruling party says it will hold the presidential elections with or without the opposition.
Disagreements have arisen since last month when President Alassane Ouattara declared he would run for a third term. His handpicked successor in July suffered a sudden death.
'We will go to the presidential elections in October with or without the opposition. President Ouattara is ready and will go to these elections alone if necessary,' said Adama Bictogo, executive director of Ouattara's party.
Ouattara's main challenger Henry Konan Bédié called for civil disobedience and reform of the electoral commission and the constitutional court, but opposition parties have stopped short of saying they would boycott the poll.
Ivory Coast's Constitutional Council has cleared Ouattara, former president Bedie and two other candidates to contest in the vote.
Saudi Arabia Interior Ministry said Tuesday that umrah pilgrimage for Muslims resumes from October 4.
The Saudi King Salman, the kingdom's 84-year-old ruler, said holding the hajj in the shadow of the pandemic required 'double efforts' by Saudi authorities.
The hajj and umrah pilgrimages are a massive logistical challenge, with colossal crowds cramming into relatively small holy sites, making them vulnerable to contagion.
The kingdom had suspended the umrah in March and later scaled back the annual hajj in a blow to millions of pilgrims around the world amid fears that the coronavirus could spread to Islam's holiest sites.
In the first stage, '6,000 citizens and residents within the kingdom will be allowed to perform the umrah per day from October 4', the ministry said in a statement published by the official Saudi Press Agency.
Visitors from outside the kingdom will be permitted from November 1, when umrah's capacity will be raised to 20,000 pilgrims per day, the ministry added.
The umrah, which refers to the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca that can be undertaken at any time of year, usually attracts millions of Muslims from across the globe each year.
The ministry said umrah would be allowed to resume at full 'natural capacity' once the threat of the pandemic is eliminated.
The decision to resume umrah was in response to the 'aspirations of Muslims home and abroad' to perform the ritual and visit the holy sites, the ministry added.
The decision comes after the kingdom organised the smallest hajj in modern history in late July, with only up to 10,000 Muslims allowed to take part in total â” a far cry from the 2.5 million who participated last year.
Health authorities said no coronavirus cases were reported at the holy sites during the hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam and a must for able-bodied Muslims at least once in their lifetime.
Hajj pilgrims circled the sacred Kaaba â” a cubic structure inside Mecca's Grand Mosque towards which Muslims around the world pray â” along socially distant paths.
The pilgrims were also subjected to regular temperature checks and required to go into mandatory quarantine after the ritual.
The economic conference of August 18 and 19 had the immense advantage of revealing to us the economic vision of the current Algerian regime and the ultra-liberal options that constitute its basis.
Let's start with the closing speech of Prime Minister Djerad who spoke of 'economic diversification by encouraging productive investment and processing industries, the revision of rule 51/49⦠the removal of the obligation of a local financing for foreign investments and the abolition of the preferential system for the importation of SKD / CKD, the development of natural resources (in particular mining), the substitution of imported products by those processed locally to preserve foreign exchange reserves, the promotion of the industrial fabric with particular attention to SMEs and start-ups ', promising' the liberation of initiatives from all bureaucratic obstacles ', that is to say less intervention by the State, or more exactly more freedom left to private initiative.
This speech alone summarized the main axes on which the economic projects of the government revolve: industrialization based on the promotion of processing industries and exploitation (with the aim of being exported) of mining resources, the promotion of SMEs. and 'start-ups', and investments from the national and foreign private sector ⦠Djerad mentions in passing, the preservation of the 'social character of the State', which the previous regime had taken care to do, because in a society that remains divided between rich and poor, it is still necessary to provide the latter at least with bread, water and electricity in order to prevent any form of revolt. With the exception of this passage on the welfare state, no resolution recalled the working class condition, social demands or the question of the purchasing power of the masses.
This regime is stalling because the private sector has not waited for these directions to unfold and fit into the capitalist mold for three or four decades. Nothing new indeed, because the industrial sector of transformation, strongly represented by the agro-food industries, constitutes since the 1990s and the dismantling of the public industrial fabric, the base of the national industry.
The private sector has also for a very long time freed itself from bureaucratic obstacles by operating in a framework where the informal is the rule: a majority of companies do not declare their employees to the CNAS, labour legislation is flouted and social protections are ignored, real turnover is under-declared to avoid tax and union representations are non-existent, if not repressed, as is the case with the most powerful of them (CEVITAL).
The resolutions adopted in the sectoral and thematic workshops call for 'strengthening the role of the private sector'. Those relating to agriculture come down to a series of incantations (sanitation of agricultural land, consolidation, revision of the system of concession of agricultural land and steppe rangelands, resolution of market dysfunctions, reorganization of the 'profession' into cooperatives or interest groups⦠'.
For the industry, it is still a question of revising the labour code (as if the current code protected workers from employers' arbitrariness!) And the law on investment (more freedoms, privileges and less state control) â¦
For the financing of development, it is necessary to note the 'revision of the exchange policies' and the arrangement of a 'progressive floating of the exchange rate', which means, in terms of economic benefits, a withdrawal of the State in fixing the value of the dinar and more freedom for the (parallel) markets to decide on this value, which will continue to be depreciated against the dollar or the euro, which means higher prices and also power of purchase down â¦
Among other recommendations, it is a question of facilitating investments, and a 'simplification of the procedures for accessing public resources'.
Note that privatization or opening up to private capital will be extended to banks, the transport sector, ports, but also to the flagships of our industry, now under public control â¦
We can clearly see that the economic liberalization initiated under the Chadli era, pursued and accentuated by his successors, is again and again renewed, even larger and broader.
These guidelines written in the form of recommendations within these famous workshops of the conference which brought together ministers, state executives, bosses, union representatives' heirs to Sidi Saïd, and some 'experts' (mostly acquired from the ideology).
Algerian Parliament
A 'new economy' with political staff who generously fed 'the system'
The nature of economic choices comes as no surprise when you consider the political staff in charge of the economy. In addition to the services of liberal economists, Tebboune's economic advisor is Abdelaziz Khellef and Djerad's advisor is another financial executive, Brahim Bouzeboudjen.
The first was Minister of Commerce (1980-1986), Minister of Finance (1986-1988) and Secretary General of the Presidency (1991-92). In other words, he has spent his entire career as a senior civil servant in the service of the Chadli regime, the source of the current economic disaster. After that date he pursued a career as a banker (including the Islamic Development Bank).
Father of the anti-shortage program for the import of superfluous consumer products, the first act of squandering the savings in foreign currencies created under Boumediène to finance 'investments to enhance existing potential'. But also an active player in the economic liberalization measures launched under the Chadli era.
The second, a former director of the Treasury, was the secretary of Khellef, but also the former director of cabinet of Benflis before being appointed in 2010 by Bouteflika as head of the National Organ for the prevention and fight against corruption (ONPLC), an alibi institution that failed â” to be kind â” in the fight against this phenomenon.
Instead of calling to account this high-ranking official paid for years to investigate corruption â” he who managed the Algerian treasury, is therefore perfectly placed to denounce overbilling, currency transfers or other purchases of goods real estate abroad â” known to citizens â” a presidential decree elevated him to the rank of first economic adviser to the Prime Minister.
This is how Tebboune is building the new Algeria with people from the past, having had, through the exercise of their functions, a responsibility in the economic disaster, and whose roots are to be found in ultra-liberal options that we are renewing today.
Small additional information: the 'golden boy' Alexandre Kateb, influential member of the Sellal task force, with a Macronian professional background (a man in the service of French banks), who inspired in 2017, against the very advice of the BCA, unconventional financing and the new 'economic model' (of which we have not the slightest written record) wrote an article on Lebanon published in the newspaper Le Monde dated Friday, August 21 (page 26). He recommends that Lebanon draw closer ⦠to Israel and cooperate with that state to resolve its dependence on energy. This gives us an idea of the ideological complicities that unite certain supporters of economic liberalism â¦
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Written by Sid ali, first published in the Alger républicain
Polisi y'Ubuhinde ivuga ko umugore utwite bivugwa ko inda ye yatemwe igatoborwa n'umugabo we akoresheje urukero, yabyaye umwana w'umuhungu upfuye. Umuryango w'uwo mugore uvuga ko uwo mugabo yakoze urwo rugomo kuko yashakaga kumenya igitsina cy'umwana uzavuka.
Uyu muryango, uvuga ko uwo mugore n'umugabo bafitanye abana batanu b'abakobwa kandi ko uwo mugabo yari amaze igihe yotsa igitutu umugore we ngo abyare umuhungu.
Uwo mugabo yatawe muri yombi. Avuga ko atakomerekeje umugore we ku bushake, ko ahubwo ibyabaye ari impanuka.
Ibi byabereye mu karere ka Badaun muri leta ya Uttar Pradesh mu majyaruguru y'Ubuhinde, ikaba ari nayo leta ituwe cyane kurusha izindi.
Abakuru muri polisi y'Ubuhinde babwiye BBC dukesha iyi nkuru ko uwo mugore wakomerekejwe, ubu igikomere cye cyorohejwe kitakomeje kumuzahaza, aho ari mu bitaro byo mu murwa mukuru Delhi.
Umukobwa uvukana n'uwo mugore yavuze ko abo bashakanye bari bamaze igihe batongana bishingiye ku kutabyara umwana w'umuhungu, nkuko bitangazwa n'ishami rya BBC ritangaza ibiganiro mu rurimi rwa Hindi.
Musaza w'uwo mugore avuga ko uwo mugore yajyanwe i Delhi ku cyumweru bagiriwe inama n'abaganga kubera ko igikomere cye cyari kimeze nabi cyane.
Umugabo yavuze ko atibasiye umugore we ku bushake. Yabwiye ibitangazamakuru byo mu Buhinde ko yamutereye urukero, ariko ko atari azi ko rumukomeretsa bikomeye gutyo.
Ati: 'Mfite abana batanu b'abakobwa, umwe mu bahungu banjye arapfuye. Ndabizi ko abana ari impano itangwa n'Imana. None ubu ikigiye kuba icyo ari cyo cyose, kibe'. Polisi ikomeje gukora iperereza.
