In Algeria, disputed results and record abstention undermine Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s re-election

Two days after the early presidential election of September 7 in Algeria, the National Independent Authority for Elections (ANIE) has become the scapegoat for all candidates, including the announced winner, the outgoing president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune. A vote marked by an abstention of an unprecedented scale and a major confusion over the participation figures.

According to the figures announced, Mr. Tebboune received 94.65% of the votes cast. Abdelaali Hassani Cherif, of the Movement of Society for Peace (MSP), an Islamist party, was credited with 3.17% of the votes and Youcef Aouchiche, of the Front of Socialist Forces (FFS), with 2.16%. But, against all expectations, on Sunday, September 8, before midnight, the campaign directors of the three candidates denounced, in a joint statement, “irregularities and contradictions in the announced results”expressing their desire to“informing the public of the vagueness and contradictions in the participation figures”.

Probably anxious to hide the extent of popular disaffection, Mohamed Charfi, the president of ANIE, had taken some liberties with transparency by announcing a “average participation rate” of 48.03%, based on the participation rates in the wilayas (departments) divided by their number, 58. The participation rate is, in reality, probably less than 25%, if we relate the number of votes cast, 5,630,196, to the 24,351,551 registered on the lists (the number of invalid or blank ballots not having been given).

Financial challenge

On Monday, the two defeated candidates returned to the fray, accusing the ANIE of “obvious fraud” and announcing their intention to file appeals with the Constitutional Court. The stakes are financial: by obtaining less than 5% of the votes cast, they will not be reimbursed for their campaign expenses. It is also political. The aim of the ANIE, by reducing their score, explains analyst Nadjib Belhimer, would be “to mitigate the impact of abstention, even if it does not change the results in any way”.

The scale of abstention, the first issue of the election, was indeed surprising, including in Mr. Tebboune’s camp. The latter expected a turnout at least higher than that of the presidential election of December 2019 (less than 40%), which already made him a head of state lacking legitimacy.

To justify their presentation in an election that was already decided, the two defeated candidates spoke at a press conference of « menaces » on the country, without being able to specify them. In the same vein, the Algerian press agency APS launched, shortly after the announcement of the results, a more targeted, but already tested, attack against the French media, accused of “to convey untruths” : « [L’Algérie est] on the path to emergence, very far from the colony of misery from which you were driven out… May this choir make the effort to recognize that Algeria is much better off than France.”

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