President’s promise of ‘deep reforms’ has calmed protests but may not be the end of the crisis

In the first line of Abdulaziz Bouteflika’s letter to the nation on Monday night, the Algerian president said the country was living through a sensitive stage of its history. On this, at least he and his compatriots are agreed.

The 82-year-old politician, who has had a series of strokes that have left him in poor health, has been in power since 1999. The announcement that he would not be seeking a further five-year term caused widespread celebration. This was the principal demand of the hundreds of thousands – possibly millions – who marched peacefully through cities and towns across Algeria on Friday in protests on a scale not seen for decades.

Democracy movement Mouwatana opposes president Bouteflika’s bid for a fifth term

The coordinator of protests sweeping across Algeria for the past week has called for wholesale regime change as tens of thousands are expected to take to the streets on Friday.

“What Algerians want is to get rid of not just the president, but the entire regime,” said Soufiane Djilali, who spearheads the Mouwatana (Democracy and Citizenship) movement, which organised some of the historic protests against the current ruler, Abdelaziz Bouteflika. “The president must go, the government must resign, and the fake national assembly – all these need to be dismantled,” he said.