Five women including a prominent women's rights campaigner joined the Algerian government Monday following elections last month.
Leading feminist activist Khalida Toumi-Messaoudi became minister of communications and culture and government spokeswoman.
There were no women in the previous administration of Prime Minister Ali Benflis, re-appointed Monday by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to head a cabinet retaining leading figures in key posts.
During his election campaign Benflis emphasized the need to give more opportunities in public life to women and young people in the interests of modernization.
Benflis' National Liberation front (FLN) party won the May 30th Algerian election with 199 of the 389 seats in the assembly.
Two key figures retained their posts in the new Algerian cabinet announced Monday. They were Foreign Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem and Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni.
Benflis, 57, represents the forward-looking wing of the FLN, which ruled Algeria single-handed from independence in 1962 until 1991.
He served as justice minister in the pro-reform government of Kasdi Merbah that was formed after widespread unrest in October 1988 and was re-appointed by another pro-reform prime minister, Mouloud Hamrouche, who was dismissed in June 1991 after the radical Islamic Salvation Front launched its uprising.
Benflis, a former human rights lawyer and one of the founders of the Algerian Human Rights League in 1986, took over the FLN helm this year as party secretary general, and campaigned heavily on the theme of peace, declaring it was time for Algerians to "live without fear".
Benflis wants to rid the party of its old guard, and bring in both women and younger members.
During electoral meetings, he openly denounced the old guard, declaring they barred younger people from participating and believed in keeping women at home.
Benflis said he wanted the FLN to provide a balance between those prepared to give a political role to Islamic fundamentalists and hard-liners known as "the eradicators" who sought to destroy the extremists completely.
Foreign Minister Belkhadem, aged 57, is an Islamic conservative who remains in post in spite of press speculation he would stand down.
His appointment in 2000 was criticized by the privately owned press, which saw it as a concession to the Islamic fundamentalists with whom Belkhadem has proposed dialogue. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
