Algeria's Islamist Bloc Splinters
A Third Time as Rivals Emerge

Former leaders in the Algerian Movement for the Society of Peace (MSP) are now on the verge of launching a new “Brotherhood” party. This party will be the third to secede from the movement founded by the late MSP leader Mahfoud Nahnah.

About This Article

Summary : For the third time, Algeria's Muslim Brotherhood-aligned Movement for the Society of Peace (MSP) faces the emergence of a rival Islamist party formed by its seceding members, as Atef Kadadra reports.   Publisher: Al-Hayat (Pan Arab) Original Title: Algeria: Third 'Political Body' Prepares to Secede from Brotherhood Author: Atef Kadadra First Published: October 17, 2012 Posted on: October 17 2012 Translated by: Sami-Joe Abboud Categories : Algeria

Leaders close to Mustafa Belmehdi, a friend of the late Nahnah and one of the Brotherhood’s main figures in Algeria, talked about completing the organizational restructuring of the National Building Movement in the provinces. This implies that a new crisis is looming within the MSP, which is led by Bouguerra Soltani and which represents the Muslim Brotherhood’s school of thought in Algeria.

The MSP's current condition is similar to that of the National Liberation Front in the 1980s, when it was the only party on the political arena. However, it has witnessed the emergence of conflicting movements from within the party, and "spawned" dozens of new parties as soon as it applied the constitution allowing pluralism.

Leading figures who label themselves the "owners of the MSP's authentic approach," are moving to launch the National Building Movement. It is expected to be led by Belmehdi, the closest of the former leaders to the founder of the MSP, the late Nahnah.

In addition to Belmehdi, the name of former leader Abdel-Qadir bin Qarina is also being mentioned.

Those organizing the new project issued a “call" to those they referred to as "students, sons and fellows" of the two Sheikhs Mahfoud Nahnah and Mohammed Bouslimani (assassinated in the '90s) to join the "broad project which consolidates the bonds of fraternity and the culture of love, thus exerting a sincere effort to serve religion, the people and the homeland."

The call, which was signed by Belmehdi on behalf of the party’s founding committee, included a confirmation of the educational and reformative nature of the organization that is being established. At the same time, the call explained that the project will be primarily “formative, educational and reformative for the individual, the society and the state.”

Belmehdi has been out of the spotlight ever since the death of Nahnah in 2003. During the first split crisis that hit the MSP, Belmehdi remained impartial in the conflict between Soltani and Abdul Majeed Menasra, who later founded the Front for Change.

Belmehdi has seemingly started to make his move after the second split within the MSP, when Omar Ghoul withdrew from it weeks ago to found the Rally for Algeria's Hope.

It is believed that Belmehdi is closely connected to leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and some are expecting the Front for Change — led by Menasra — to join his new movement, knowing that Menasra’s movement did not yield very good results in the last legislative elections.

On a separate note, Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci, said yesterday [Oct. 16] that a Libyan delegation visited the Embassy of Algeria in Tripoli to offer its apologies on behalf of its country, after a group surrounded the headquarters of the Algerian embassy right after the end of a game between the Algerian and Libyan football national teams days ago.

Ammar Balani, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expressed the Algerian authorities' sorrow regarding the incident, but stressed that Algeria is confident that the attack on its embassy "will not affect" the course of the historical relations of fraternity and cooperation between the two brotherly peoples.