With enfeebled Bouteflika sworn in, Algeria looks towards a ‘transition’

Well before President Abdelaziz Bouteflika emerged predictably triumphant from his campaign to win a fourth term of office, in which the zaïm (charismatic leader) himself player virtually no part, the talk among the Algerian political elite and many of their business partners was of ‘transition’. The enfeebled president was hardly able to function following his stroke last year, underlined by his halting performance taking the oath of office on 28 April; but there was consensus within the ruling elite that the Bouteflika IV administration would herald a period of transition, modernising the apparatus of state and functioning of the economy.