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By Majid Morceli
San Francisco – While François Holland, in a super quick visit to Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, announced that French car-maker Peugeot was holding advanced negotiations with the Algerian authorities to establish a new manufacturing plant in the north African country, Peugeot executives meanwhile were putting the finishing touches on an agreement to build a factory in Kenitra, a deal with Morocco that was signed a few days later.
Obviously the Moroccan agreement has infuriated many ordinary Algerians, but not because Morocco is able to attract foreign investment or because Algerians wish ill on Moroccans, but mainly because Algerian leaders are not very concerned with what’s taking place in Algeria.
Oil and natural gas, which make up 98% of Algerian exports, plunged by 50% and all of the previously announced grandiose projects, which would have provided jobs to the unemployed, have been scrapped. Instead, Algeria’s leaders are doing their utmost to do one thing and one thing only: to procure the downfall of their archenemy Morocco — clearly, wishful thinking on the part of Morocco’s foes.
The Algerian people are not duped, they totally grasp that while their immediate neighbor to the west is trying hard to find ways and means to improve the lives of its citizens — even with lack of natural resources, the main focus of the Algerian authorities is to undermine their neighbor in their relentless and obsessive fight with Morocco.
A simple example is while Morocco’s Prime Minister Benkirane was recently in France signing business deals, Algeria’s Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal was in South Africa pathetically trying to gather support from African dictators headed by the 90 year old Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, during the African Union charade.
No one will invest in Algeria, and if the executives of Peugeot or any other major investor take the plunge and invest in Algeria, it will be a pure gamble. Without a long-term vision, with corrupt leadership, and a president who swore to die in his wheelchair while in office, Algeria is a time bomb waiting to explode.
Unlike, the Algerian regime, Moroccan authorities understand very well that Algeria’s downfall is not a good thing for Morocco. The first thing that comes to mind is tourism. No one will visit Morocco if its neighboring state fails. The same thing goes for foreign investment: no one will put his or her money near a risky environment.
The Algerian outdated regime, aided by its propagandist media has one primordial and perpetual goal: to defeat Morocco by any means necessary even it means its own downfall. This week, l’expression, a news media outlet close to the Algerian generals, accused Morocco of making a deal with ISIS. They speculate about the reason that terrorists are attacking Tunisia but not Morocco, oblivious to the fact that Morocco was attacked in Marrakesh long before Tunisia.
Just imagine if all this effort that Algeria puts in to undermine Morocco were directed at making peace with Morocco. North Africa would be the envy of the world.
François Holland, realizing that Algeria’s regime is not about to change any time soon, decided to jump on the bandwagon and give much needed support to a lethargic president “governing” from a wheel chair. His supporters in the military and in the corrupt parliament are telling everyday Algerians that Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States, not only served an unprecedented four terms in office, but also that he was the first president with a significant physical disability bound to a wheelchair.
Basically, they are saying that if an American president can do it and be good at it, an Algerian president can be just as good.
Algeria is not America. Algerians are still recovering from the “Black Decade” and they are waiting and hoping for miracles that will never come as long as they are governed by an incapacitated president. Morocco needs to continue to forge ahead and focus on its current positive course and never look back.
Edited by Elisabeth Myers
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The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy
