Algeria: President Tebboune Update

My last post on Algeria was in mid-September. I looked into the impact of COVID-19 on the protests.

I didn't read much about Algeria for a few weeks and when I did recently, I learned that President Tebboune came down with COVID-19 a month after my blog post. After getting taken to a hospital in Germany, he finally made a video message in December. Per Associated Press (Dec 13):

Still recovering from COVID-19, Algeria’s president suddenly reappeared Sunday after nearly two months out of the public eye, saying in a video message that it may still be several more weeks before he is fit enough to return to his North African country.

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune fell ill and then left for treatment in Germany in late October. Before his 4-minute, 54-second video on Sunday, his last public appearance had been in mid-October, meeting France’s foreign minister when he visited the former French colony.

The 75-year-old Tebboune spoke clearly in the video and did not appear short of breath even after long phrases. He has, however, clearly lost weight.

BBC (Dec 29) reported a couple weeks later that he finally returned to Algeria:

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has returned home after receiving coronavirus treatment in Germany for two months, state television reports.

Back in Dec 2019, I wrote a blog post that looked into the idea that he might not be in office that long. Of course, I wasn't thinking he would come down with COVID-19 at the time. The main reason for a potential short presidency was due to the country's dependency on oil and gas and how low prices would cause economic pain for the country and perhaps cause additional social unrest. As a quick update, Middle East Business Intelligence (Dec 13) reports on the economy:

Algeria's economy has been hit hard by the 2020 decline in global oil prices, which have dramatically diminished the oil revenues that equate to about 85 percent of the country's total exports and 50 per cent of government revenue. While the IMF estimates that Algeria's GDP will contract by only 505 per cent in 2020 in real terms . . . In its budget, Algeria has more than doubled its fiscal deficit from 5.6 per cent in 2019 to 11.5 per cent in 2020.

As mentioned in my mid-September post, COVID-19 put a damper on street protests; however, could he still be short on time? Dealing with COVID-19 for over a month must have caused serious health issues for the 75 year-old president. There are many health issues are associated with COVID-19 such as lung and kidney issues, but I'd like to mention that there are brain function problems. I've written about it here and here. I wrote about the Northwester Medicine health system study that indicated that older patients suffer from encephalopathy, which means an impact on brain functions. Just something to keep an eye on this. How military and political leaders act over the next few months will provide some clues on how healthy the president is.