TEBBOUNE AND CHENGRIHA TURN MECHANICS: FROM POWER TO SPARE PARTS.
After more than three weeks of mysterious silence, Algerian president Abdelmadjid Tebboune resurfaced in a clumsy, hastily edited video broadcast by state television. The short clip, barely 30 seconds long, looked more like a poorly staged comedy sketch than a presidential address: fixed camera angles, evasive glances, no sound… and a glaring absence — that of the Prime Minister.
Flanked by his loyal partner in misfortune, “General” Chengriha — downgraded by popular sarcasm to the rank of a mere corporal — Tebboune presided over what was presented as a government meeting. In reality, the scene resembled a neighborhood garage workshop more than the halls of state. Instead of tackling urgent diplomatic, social, or economic issues, the duo reinvented themselves as mechanics. Their latest miracle promise? The urgent importation of 10,000 city buses, along with tires and spare parts, to somehow revive a national transport fleet in near ruin.
Ten thousand buses. An absurd figure, dropped without the slightest financial plan or industrial rationale, perfectly illustrating the regime’s total disconnect from reality. Algerians, never short on wit, quickly dubbed their rulers “spare-parts salesmen,” wondering aloud whether the presidency had turned into a second-hand auto shop.
Yet behind the farce lies a darker truth. Corruption, mismanagement, and repression have left Algeria stalled, its engine dead, its tires flat. With crude propaganda clips and empty speeches, the military regime desperately tries to disguise the obvious: the state is broken down and led by mechanics unfit to steer it anywhere but backward.
What remains is a country held hostage by aging leaders who confuse governance with tinkering, and who mistake the dignity of their people for an expendable commodity. A tragicomedy indeed — but for millions of Algerians, there is nothing funny about it.
Translated from Abderrazzak Boussaid’s French article – le7tv
