Bouteflika's Minister Noureddine Boukrouh; From a Political Leader to a Political Analyst

Noureddine Boukrouh, the former Minister of Trade during the era of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, is good at creating controversy with his statements.

Boukrouh criticizes the Islamists of Algeria, and attacks President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who describes him as "crazy."

Abroad, where he settled to escape prison threats against the symbols of the former regime in Algeria, the man regularly talks on his social media pages about news in his country.

Some consider his words stinging and that he "puts his finger on the wound,” as described by the French magazine "Jeune Afrique,” since he gave up his costume as a political leader to wear the uniform of the observer and commentator.

His Facebook page, which has more than 69,000 subscribers, has become a source of news about Algeria on which Boukrouh comments and evaluates the performance of his country's officials.

 

Controversy Industry

On June 14, 2021, a text published by Boukrouh entitled “Tebboune, This Crazy Man,” in which he commented on the legislative elections that took place on the 12th of the same month, when the "National Liberation Front" party emerged with a relative majority.

Boukrouh said about Tebboune: "He escaped from prison thanks to the protection of Ahmed Gaid Salah, the former deputy defense minister and chief of staff of the army, who died in December 2019.”

Boukrouh questioned the "mental coherence" of the head of state, describing him as "alleged,” considering that "it is impossible to make an interview, because he only hears his voice."

He hinted at "the necessity of dismissing the head of state because of his mental health," otherwise he would constitute a "national threat and a source of international turmoil."

Since coming to power, Tebboune has been regularly criticized, but no one has come to the point of Boukrouh's proposals.

If Algeria's public prosecutor's office had shown the same enthusiasm it showed during the trial of the former president's opponents for insulting, Boukrouh would be in prison, but the former minister who defines himself as a "free activist" is no longer residing in the country.

"Jeune Afrique" quoted private sources, that the man settled for a period in Lebanon before traveling to southern France, where he is currently residing.

Before criticizing all those, who are part of the regime, Noureddine Boukrouh was one of them in Bouteflika's decade, as an economics graduate held executive positions in administration and public institutions starting in 1980, before moving to the private sector.

At that time, he was already famous for his writings on Islamic thought, which were published in the Algerian press.

In the business world, Boukrouh invests in an imaging laboratory in the highlands of Algiers and in a small unit for the manufacture of vaccines, which was not very successful due to administrative obstacles in particular, according to his statements.

He began writing about Islam from an ideological and political point of view in 1970, and the most resonant article among the state during that period was the article in which he criticized the icon of French Orientalism, Maxime Rodanson, which was published on the first of December 1971.

He complained directly to former President Houari Boumediene and Minister Talib Ahmed al-Ibrahimi, and he answered him in his book "Marxism and the Islamic World,” which was published a few months later, by dedicating its first paragraph to him.

After returning from Iran, where he experienced the Iranian revolution from the inside in 1979, he wrote a series of long articles that also caused a sensation, followed by his article on “The Genius of the Peoples” and “Cruelty” in the same year and even “Socialism for the Milking Cow” in 1985.

 

Failure is The Reason for his Success

The democratic opening, which began after the bloody riots of October 1988, which marked the end of the one-party, provided the opportunity for the entry of the political expert through the creation in 1989 of the Algerian Renewal Party, a liberal party with slightly Islamist ideas.

The party provided a good platform for Boukrouh, who was fluent in Arabic and French, when he addressed the Algerians in 1990 during a televised debate.

Boukrouh was active in the media, his beginning was in small theaters, in the legislative elections in December 1991, which were won by the Islamic Salvation Front (dissolved in 1992).

The Renewed Party won 0.98 percent of the seats, but this disaster did not deter the former minister from saying that it helped make him more famous.

During the November 1995 presidential elections, in the midst of the civil war, the then-chief of secret intelligence, General Tawfiq, encouraged him to run along the lines of Major Generals Lamine Zeroual, Said Saied and Mahfouz Nahnah, after obtaining 75,000 signatures to verify the authenticity of the demand.

Boukrouh came fourth with a majority of 434,144 votes, against more than 7 million for Zeroual.

After his candidacy for the 1999 elections, he did not have the same luck, as the Constitutional Council rejected his file for lack of sufficient signatures.

 

In the face of the General

Noureddine Boukrouh made the controversy again in the summer of 1998 with a series of texts in which he fought against the authority, and in particular General Mohamed Pechin, the outcast security adviser under former president, Liamine Zeroual, who ruled Algeria between 1995 and 1999, according to press reports.

It "required the courage to confront Pechen," as it was at that time to pronounce that general's name almost forbidden.

Boukrouh then described the system as a "sink,” denouncing its "poor performance,” and calling Pechin "the import master" in reference to his financial empire.

Due to accusations of "financial embezzlement,” the powerful general withdrew in the fall of 1998, which led to the early departure of his protector Zeroual, whose resignation opened the way for Bouteflika to succeed him.

To this day, Boukrouh is accused of being lured by one strong party, defending himself with confidence.

His acquaintances assert that Boukrouh acted on a private initiative in 1998, "not being used or led,” as he knows, but Boukrouh has a narcissistic side, believed to be extremely intelligent and does not accept criticism.

Boukrouh was given power with the arrival of Bouteflika, who made him Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises, then Minister of Trade, before leaving the government in 2005.

Boukrouh demanded the extension of Bouteflika's third term, and criticism continued, describing him as one of the sons of the regime, while he swears, in every exit on social media, that he acted as a free man and that he opposed the ousted president more than once, and summoned the testimonies of former ministers as evidence of his independence and freedom within the authority.

Noureddine Boukrouh moved away from the political scene, lost control of his party and returned to his private life, before Bouteflika's illness and a stroke in the spring of 2013 gave him the opportunity to return to the fore.

The former Minister of Trade did not oppose the head of state retaining power despite his deteriorating health. Instead, he demanded an extension of the third term or the creation of the position of vice president who would campaign instead of Bouteflika and ensure the country's administration if the latter's health did not improve.

 

Moody Politician

Boukrouh adopted a fickle opinion before 2015, when he continued to enjoy his freedom of speech to speak regularly on political and social news and became a fierce opponent of Bouteflika, in spite of writing his speeches several times.

Boukrouh said in an interview with the newspaper "Al-Watan" in 2017, that it is "unacceptable, unfair and immoral," which is the same ruling he issued today against Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

He was summoned by the chief police official in the capital after the publication of his article "The Good, the Press and the Ugly,” on November 24, 1971, in the French language daily newspaper "Al-Mujahid,” under the regime of Colonel Boumediene.

The attacks on Pechin in 1998 led to obtaining an arrest warrant, although it is not known how it was withdrawn.

His first article was published on November 26, 1970 in the same newspaper, entitled "Islam and Progressiveness." The father of five children never concealed his admiration for the Algerian Islamic thinker, Malek Bennabi.

His calls between 2017 and 2018 for the revolution of citizens cost him the destruction of part of his home in Algeria by order of the now imprisoned Governor of Algeria (Abdulkader Zoukh).

Former Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia, who is now serving a heavy prison sentence, was even sent death threats.

“I had to leave the country,” Noureddine Boukrouh explained in February 2021, and it is likely that he will not set foot in it again during the Tebboune era.