Louisa Hanoune

Infobox_Officeholder
name = Louisa Hanoune


birth_date = birth date and age|1954|04|07|df=y
birth_place = Jijel, Algeria
spouse =
party = Workers' Party
relations =
children =
residence =
alma_mater = University of Annaba
occupation =
profession = Lawyer
religion = Islam

Louisa Hanoune (Arabic:لويزة حنون) (born 7 April 1954 in Jijel) is head of Algeria's Workers' Party (Parti des Travailleurs, PT). In 2004, she became the first woman to run for president in Algeria.

Hanoune was imprisoned by the government several times prior to the legalization of political parties in 1988. She was jailed soon after she joined the Trotskyist Social Workers Organisation, an illegal party, in 1981, and again after the 1988 October Riots, which brought about the end of the National Liberation Front's (FLN) one-party rule.

During Algeria's bloody civil war of the 1990s, Hanoune was one of the few opposition voices in parliament, and, despite her party's secularist values, a strong opponent of the government's "eradication" policy toward Islamists. In January 1995, she signed the Sant'Egidio Platform together with representatives of other opposition parties - notably including the Islamic Salvation Front, the radical Islamist party whose dissolution by military decree brought about the start of the civil war.

Early life

Born on the 7th April 1954 into a family of poor mountain peasants from Jijel, Algeria, she had to flee in the midst of war with all her family to the city Annaba, after her parent’s home was bombed by the French army. After independence in 1962, she was the first woman of her family to go to school. Hanoune studied law at the University of Annaba, a decision which was opposed by her father.Fact|date=September 2008 She has stated that “It is this right to education which will completely change the position, the representation of women in our society and of which I am partly a product of.”Fact|date=September 2008

Political career

It was within the ‘socialist turmoil’ of Algeria’s newfound independence that Louisa Hanoune formed her political conscience: “The whole country was still pulsing from the war of liberation, everybody was talking about socialism, of justice, of progress. Algeria was at the height of its anti-imperialist battle…we were completely united with the Palestinians, their cause was also ours. We were against apartheid in South Africa, we talked about Vietnam, I grew up like all my generation in this militant atmosphere, of struggle”.Under the dictatorship of the one-party system, Louisa Hanoune campaigned in feminist groups in protest of the family code, adopted by the Algerian assembly in 1984 and still in force today. As a member of the underground Workers socialist organization (OST), she was arrested in 1986 and spend six months in prison. When, under pressure from bloody riots, Algeria adopted a pluralist system in 1989, Hanoune co-founded the Workers Party and has since been the party spokesperson.

Candidate to Presidency of Algeria

In 2004, she became the first female candidate to seek office during the Algerian presidential election. This event was not only a first in Algeria but in the entire Arab world. Only six candidates were recognized by the constitutional council. Many candidates presented in the press as ‘political tenors’ were refused access to the presidential election campaigns, while other ‘tenors’ preferred to throw in the towel. Hanoune has been recognized and appreciated for her achievements as a politician and as a woman.

Louisa Hanoune will be a candidate for the 2009 Algerian presidential election.

External links

* [http://www.ptalgerie.com/ Official site PT]
* [http://www.babelmed.net/index.php?c=89&m=&k=&l=en Louisa Hanoune]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3511120.stm BBC News]