ALGIERS, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Former Algerian Justice Minister Mohamed Chorfi was unanimously elected on Sunday to head the Independent Election Monitoring Authority, local media reported.
The election of Chorfi took place during a meeting between the coordinator of the Dialogue and Mediation Panel, Karim Younes, and 50 members of the Independent Election Monitoring Authority, according to the state-run ENTV channel.
Mohamed Chorfi served as justice minister twice, in 2002 and in 2013. He had been fired by former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in 2013, a few months after the issuance of an international arrest warrant against former Energy Minister Chakib Khelil, over a corruption probe within the state-run energy giant Sonatrach.
Earlier on Sunday, interim president Abdelkader Bensalah approved the amended laws relating to the electoral system, and to the Independent Election Monitoring Authority, the Presidency said in a statement. Both texts were already adopted on Friday by the lower and upper houses of Parliament.
For now, the interim president is due to address the Algerian people late on Sunday to convene the electorate ahead of participating in the presidential election that should be organized later December.
Algeria has been rocked by wide scale protest movement since Feb 22, forcing former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to resign on April 2.
The demonstrators are claiming the departure of interim president Abdelkader Bensalah and the cabinet led by Prime Minister Noureddine Bedoui under the pretext that they belong to the regime of ousted president.
This demand is still rejected by the army. For now, the dialogue and mediation panel is trying to convince different political actors and civil society activists to endorse the election process.
Some political parties expressed their will to participate in these elections, while some others snubbed the call, as they insist on moving toward a transition era of at least six months led by a cabinet of technocrat ministers, within which a new constitution would be crafted and free and fair elections would be held.
