ALGIERS: Algerian police deployed rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons on Friday against protesters in Algiers demanding that Abdelaziz Bouteflika step down as president.
Witnesses claimed a million people had taken to the streets in the capital but authorities said there was no official figure.
Huge numbers turned out for a sixth successive Friday despite a string of loyalists deserting the president and calling for him to quit and make way for a government-led change of leadership.
Protesters rejected those moves as attempts by key figures in Bouteflika’s entourage to retain their own grip on power.
Crowds of demonstrators, many of them young but also including army veterans of Algeria’s 1990s civil war, packed the square outside the main post office, which has become the center of protests.
“We’re fed up with those in power,” the protesters chanted. “We want a new government.”
Some waved the green, white and red Algerian flag or draped it over their shoulders, while others held banners with slogans and cartoons.
“We’re here to issue a final appeal to those in power: ‘Take your bags and go’,” said Amin, 45, who traveled to the capital from the port of Bejaia nearly 200 km away.
Bouteflika, 82, who uses a wheelchair and has rarely been seen in public since suffering a stroke in 2013, this month postponed presidential elections due in April and said he would not seek a fifth term as planned.
The move angered Algerians who saw it as a ploy by those around him to extend his two decades in power, and tens of thousands took to the streets demanding his immediate removal.
Protesters on Friday chose humor to reject plans for a transition of power under Article 102 of the Algerian constitution. “102 — that number is out of service,” said one placard. “Please call the people.”
Others raised a banner saying: “We demand the implementation of Article 2019: All of you go.”
While many are against Bouteflika and his inner circle, they also reject the army’s intervention in civilian political life.
“Street pressure will continue until the system goes,” said student Mohamed Djemai, 25.
“We have only one word to say today, all the gang must go immediately, game over,” said Ali, a merchant.
