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Rabat – Under pressure from continued protests in Algiers, Algeria’s top army chief Gaid Salah has said that time is “running out” to end the escalating crisis in the country before elections.
Salah asserted that “all options are open in the pursuit of overcoming the different difficulties” to end the crisis “as soon as possible.”
Salah made his comments on Tuesday after the head of the Algerian Constitutional Council, Tayeb Belaiz, resigned.
Belaiz responded to the demand of protesters, who have been calling on him and all other top officials to step down.
Belaiz had resisted the protesters’ demands for two weeks after former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and his government resigned on April 3.
The protesters are now calling on Interim President Abdelkader Bensalah to resign, demanding a radical change in the system.
Following Belaiz’s resignation, Bensalah appointed a member of the council, Kamel Feniche, as the new council president.
He was a member of the council since 2016.
Gaid Salah called on Algerians to be patient ahead of the coming election, which will take place on July 4.
On Tuesday, however, protests continued as thousands of students rallied across the country, calling on Bensalah to leave.
Some politicians had previously argued that Bensalah cannot run the country due to his former Moroccan nationality.
“Mr. Abdelkader [Bensalah] has a Moroccan nationality. He can be a minister, a governor, a director of an administration, but it is impossible for him to be a president,” said Rachid Nekkaz, referring to Algeria’s Constitution.
The head of Algeria’s Justice and Development Front Party, Lakhdar Benkhellaf, shared the same position as Nekkaz, opposing Bensalah because he was born in Morocco.
“The condition for a [leader] occupying the post of President of the Republic, is that he must have the Algerian nationality of origin. And he [Bensalah] had another nationality until 1964 during which he had obtained Algerian nationality,” he said.
