ALGIERS Algeria AP Smail Hamdani a senator and former ambassador to Paris is expected to become Algeria's prime minister within the week Algerian newspapers reported Tuesday. Reports of the eventual resignation of Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia in office since January 1996 have circulated since President Liamine Zeroual announced in September that he would cut short his term. Early presidential elections are set for April. Ouyahia's name is among those circulating as potential presidential candidates. According to the paper Demain l'Algerie Hamdani described as a non-partisan technocrat will take office on Dec. 6. There was no official confirmation of the report. But the head of the leftist Workers' Party Louisa Hanoune told reporters Monday that other Cabinet changes were in the offing. After speaking with Zeroual she said he'd told her that Ouyahia and several other government ministers would be stepping down ``around Dec. 10.'' In addition to Ouyahia Communications Minister Hamraoui Habib Chawki interim Justice Minister Hamed Nouj and Interior Minister Mustapha Ben Mansour will be resigning according to Hanoune. Zeroual did not reveal who would replace the ministers Hanoune said saying only that the successors would be ``non-partisan.'' Ouyahia has not denied rumors over his reported plans to run for the presidency. In the past it has been the army that determines the nation's president drawn from military ranks. Zeroual is a retired general. rk-eg-jn APW19981201.0438.txt.body.html APW19981201.0724.txt.body.html