It was an election without any real surprises: more than 24 million Algerians were called to the polls on Saturday, September 7, for a presidential election that should see the re-election of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune for a second term. The polling stations closed at 9 p.m. (10 p.m. in Paris) – the closing having been delayed by an hour “at the request of certain coordinators”the National Independent Authority for Elections (ANIE) said. The results could be released on Saturday evening, with an official announcement expected no later than Sunday.
At 5 p.m. (6 p.m. in Paris), the turnout was 26.46%, down seven points from 2019 (33.06%), according to ANIE. By midday, it had reached 13.11%. In December 2019, abstention had broken records (60%) during the first election won by Mr. Tebboune with 58% of the vote. Early in the afternoon, middle-aged women swelled the ranks of the first voters, who were almost exclusively elderly men.
The re-election of Mr Tebboune, 78, is all the more certain as four leading parties support his candidacy, notably the National Liberation Front (former single party) and the Islamist movement El Bina. “The winner is known in advance”taking into account “quality”of “unusually small number” competitors and “conditions in which the electoral campaign took place, which is nothing but a comedy”estimates Mohamed Hennad, a political science expert, on Facebook.
Facing the outgoing president are two little-known candidates: Abdelaali Hassani, a 57-year-old public works engineer and head of the Movement of Society for Peace, the main Islamist party, and Youcef Aouchiche, 41, a former journalist and senator, head of the Front of Socialist Forces, the oldest opposition party, based in Kabylie.
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The stakes of participation
“The president wants a high turnout. That’s the first issue. He hasn’t forgotten that he was elected in 2019 with a low turnout. He wants to be a normal president, not a poorly elected president.”Hasni Abidi of Cermam, the Center for Studies and Research on the Arab and Mediterranean World, based in Geneva, told Agence France-Presse.
Abstention had broken records (60%) during the election won by Mr. Tebboune in December 2019, with 58% of the vote, while large-scale demonstrations for a change in the system, in force since independence (1962), were in full swing. This protest movement, the Hirak, had just, in April, driven from power, with the army, Mr. Tebboune’s predecessor, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, after twenty years of rule.
Faced with the specter of low turnout, Mr. Tebboune, like his opponents, has crisscrossed the country, but the election campaign has generated little enthusiasm. Algerians living abroad – 865,490 voters, according to ANIE – have been voting since Monday.
In foreign policy, there is a consensus on the Palestinian and Sahrawi causes, defended by the three candidates. The latter focused their speeches on socio-economic issues, promising to improve purchasing power and to revive the economy, so that it is less dependent on hydrocarbons (95% of foreign currency revenues).
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Aided by the natural gas windfall, Mr. Tebboune promised new salary and pension increases, investments, two million new homes and 450,000 new jobs, to make Algeria “the second economy in Africa”behind South Africa. Closing the campaign on Tuesday, the one that social networks affectionately nickname “My dear Tebboune” (Uncle Tebboune) has committed to giving back to young people – more than half of the 45 million inhabitants and a third of the voters – the “place that suits them”Mr Tebboune says his first five-year term was hampered by Covid-19 and the corruption of his predecessor, of whom he was a minister several times.
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His rivals promise more freedoms. The NGO Amnesty International accused the government this week of continuing to“stifling civic space by maintaining a harsh repression of human rights”with “new arbitrary arrests” et “a zero tolerance approach to dissenting views”According to the National Committee for the Liberation of Prisoners, dozens of people linked to the Hirak or to the defense of freedoms are still imprisoned or prosecuted.
