Mohamed Djemai, the recently imposed head of the disgraced nationalist party FLN, and member of parliament representing the northeastern region of Tebessa had grandiose goals. He was propelled to head the country’s most powerful party, albeit the most hated one too, after the Bouteflika regime collapsed. He even ambitioned to become the President of the National Assembly, paving the way for a presidential seat. But the man is one of the most crooked figures of Algeria’s business and politics. His foes accuse him of being a baron of contraband smuggling between Algeria and Tunisia. Nothing crosses the border one way or the other without him making money. These allegations have been largely spread over social media, to the point that there was jubilation among Algerians who heard about his arrest.
Djemai’s problem is the same one all the former officials currently in jail have had: too much confidence and too much loyalty to the “dictator-du-jour.” He saw himself and acted as a servant of the military institution and in particular its chief, General Gaid Salah. As such, he really thought he was protected in assuming that he was a member of the closed network of Gaid Salah loyalists. He was even preparing to acquire a television channel to offer his services to Gaid Salah and his clan.
The man has been officially placed under arrest and jailed in El-Harrach prison on Thursday, 19 September, after a full-day hearing by the court of Sidi M’hamed in Algiers. Feeling the pressure of what’s to come, Djemai has accelerated the pace of his speeches the past weeks, distinguishing himself by an obsessiveness with no equivalent to the military regime in place, publicly pledging allegiance to it. That did not serve him well. Prosecutors labeled serious charges against him, including issuing death threats and the destruction of official documents. Sources say that while the security services were investigating the workings of the oligarchs that are now in prison, Djemai allegedly bribed many of them, paying tens of thousands of euros to buy their silence on his case.
The jailing of Djemai requires several readings. The obvious one is that the political parties that have been behind the support of the Bouteflika regime are in utter turmoil. Not only they still have corrupt leaderships, but the public has been rejecting them and is demanding their end.
Djemai’s arrest is also likely part of a carrot-and-stick strategy being deployed by military chief General Gaid Salah. On the one hand, he orders an intensification of a crackdown against pro-democracy activists. On the other, he gives the people some “read meat” like Djemai so as to reduce public anger at the regime, and convince the millions of Algerians to vote on 12 December.
There is one other man who could follow Djemai’s step and that is Baha Eddine Tliba, another baron who is hated by the Algerian people. The problem is that he is an MP from Annaba, the same region as General Gaid Salah and is allegedly close to the General’s children.
Final thought: General Gaid Salah is playing a very risky game. He has been arresting personalities of all sorts, reducing his own support system to nothing. With this arrest, others supporting Gaid Salah will wonder how far they should go, if the General does not have their back. The General now has become the only decision make, reportedly listing to no more than five or six of his generals in the top command. The Generals are now left with no option but to impose an election at any cost. This means that the opposition should now brace for a more aggressive and even violence military command, at least until mid-December. At the end, under current circumstances, it is very difficult to believe that the people will suddenly change their mind, and so we may be seeing the climax of the current political crisis in Algeria by October/December horizon.