Algeria’s army chief Lieutenant-General Ahmed Gaed Salah attends newly elected Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s swearing-in ceremony, in Algiers, Algeria, on Dec. 19, 2019.
RAMZI BOUDINA/Reuters
Algeria’s powerful army chief Lieutenant-General Ahmed Gaed Salah, who was instrumental in bringing down long-time president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, has died of a heart attack, state media reported on Monday.
The 79-year-old’s death comes at a time of mass protests across Africa’s largest country, with many Algerians demanding that the ruling elite relinquish power and the influential military step back from politics.
Gaed Salah’s departure may not signify major changes to Algeria’s economic and political policies, however, with the country’s senior generals united over the handling of the protests.
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“The army hierarchy is unified and it will move on after Gaed Salah as it did before him. Algeria’s army is a single block, not under the influence of one general but with consensus as its engine,” said a retired general who asked not to be named.
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune announced a three-day mourning period and said the head of land forces, General Said Chengriha, would take over as acting chief of staff of the military.
Gaed Salah’s death comes less than a week after Tebboune was inaugurated following an election that the army had pushed for as the only way to resolve the crisis over the mass protests. Demonstrators opposed the vote and official figures showed only 40 per cent of the electorate cast ballots.
The authorities have so far rejected any systematic attempt to crush the protests with violence, allowing them to continue each week but stepping up the police presence in recent months and detaining many demonstrators.
“He kept his promise to save the blood of Algerians during a tough period,” Islam Benatia, a prominent figure in the protest movement, said on Facebook.
‘CIVILIAN, NOT MILITARY STATE’
The army’s central role in Algerian politics was underlined last week when Tebboune’s first act after being sworn in was to embrace Gaed Salah and present him with an order of merit.
Weeks after mass protests erupted early this year, Gaed Salah’s televised speech urging president Bouteflika to quit swiftly led to the veteran leader’s resignation.
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The army then backed a series of arrests of Bouteflika allies and senior businessmen in an anti-corruption campaign that was widely seen as a purge of the military’s rivals within the ruling system.
But it was not enough to appease the protesters, many of whom had begun calling for Gaed Salah’s resignation. One constant chant throughout the protests has been for “A civilian state, not a military state.”
The army has been central to Algerian politics since it won independence from France in 1962 following a guerrilla war against the colonial power. Most of the country’s leaders since that period, including Gaed Salah and the new acting army chief Chengriha, have been veterans of that struggle.
ALGERIA’S MOST POWERFUL FIGURE
Gaed Salah received military training in the Soviet Union and became head of Algeria’s land forces in 1994, early in the civil war between the state and Islamist insurgents that killed 200,000 people.
Bouteflika appointed him army chief a decade later. In the past 15 years he consolidated the military’s power in the ruling elite, helping Bouteflika face down the once-dominant intelligence service.
As Bouteflika and his allies were ousted this year, the army’s central role became more pronounced and Gaed Salah emerged as the most powerful figure in the country.
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He pushed hard for this month’s election to replace Bouteflika, a vote that the protesters rejected as a charade designed to keep the ruling elite in place, but was seen by the army as necessary to restore constitutional rule.
“Thank God we have a president now. Imagine what would have happened if there was no president,” said another retired general.
Gaed Salah’s funeral will take place on Tuesday, a day on which students have been staging weekly protests for much of the year.
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OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
