Questions on the whereabout of Algerian president

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune

It’s been a month since Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune was transferred to Germany for a specialized medical treatment. He has yet to return to the country.

The 75-year old was transferred on Wednesday October 28th a day after the presidency announced his hospitalization without explaining the cause.

Senior officials in Tebboune’s entourage in Algiers had developed symptoms for the novel coronavirus. The president was placed in what the government called ‘’voluntary preventive confinement.’’

It is not clear whether the Algerian president’s hospitalization was connected to exposure. State Television reported that his condition was stable.

The absence of president Tebboune has raised concerns about the vacancy of power as was the case during the hospitalization of former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika abroad after his serious stroke in 2013.

His brother Said Bouteflika then took over the reins of leadership and tried to impose a 5th term of office for Mr. Bouteflika. This forced Algerians to take to the streets in February 2019. Mr. Bouteflika stepped down on April 2 that same year under the double pressure from the army and the unprecedented and peaceful popular Hirak uprising.

Since his absence from the country to Cologne, Germany aboard a French medical plane, according to Algerian media, six communiqués, sometimes contradictory, have been issued by the presidency.

Following announcement on October 28 that Mr. Tebboune was hospitalized in Germany for "thorough medical examinations", the presidency explained the next day that he was receiving "adequate treatment adding that his state of health was "stable and not worrying", without indicating what the president was suffering from.

On November 3, the presidency announced that he was infected with Covid-19. Five days later, it indicated that the head of state was "on the verge of completing his treatment". Then on November 15, another statement said that he had completed his treatment and was undergoing "medical examinations".

 

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German Minister of Finance commits suicide over coronavirus

Thomas Schaefer, the finance minister of Germany’s Hesse state, has committed suicide apparently after becoming “deeply worried” over how to cope with the economic fallout from the coronavirus, state premier Volker Bouffier said Sunday.

Schaefer, 54, was found dead near a railway track on Saturday. The Wiesbaden prosecution’s office said they believe he died by suicide.

“We are in shock, we are in disbelief and above all, we are immensely sad,” Bouffier said in a recorded statement.

Hesse is home to Germany’s financial capital Frankfurt, where major lenders like Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank have their headquarters. The European Central Bank is also located in Frankfurt.

A visibly shaken Bouffier recalled that Schaefer, who was Hesse’s finance chief for 10 years, had been working “day and night” to help companies and workers deal with the economic impact of the pandemic.

“Today we have to assume that he was deeply worried,” said Bouffier, a close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“It’s precisely during this difficult time that we would have needed someone like him,” he added.

Popular and well-respected, Schaefer had long been touted as a possible successor to Bouffier.

Like Bouffier, Schaefer belonged to Merkel’s centre-right CDU party.

He leaves behind a wife and two children, GulfNews reported.

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