In front of the press in Algiers, Abdelaali Hassani nevertheless recognized the victory of the outgoing president Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
The president of the MSP (Movement of Society for Peace), the main Islamist party, was one of the two candidates in the running against Mr. Tebboune with Youcef Aouchiche, the leader of the FFS (Front of Socialist Forces), the oldest opposition party.
Participation was the main issue in the election, in which Mr Tebboune was the clear favourite.
Mr. Hassani denounced a “fraud” with “false figures” on participation “from Saturday afternoon”, demanding that “the masquerade” cease.
Mr. Hassani also contested the percentage of votes he obtained: only 3.17%, with Mr. Aouchiche winning 2.16% of the votes, according to Anie.
For the turnout at 5:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. GMT), the Anie had announced “an average participation rate” of around 26%, seven points less than at the same time in 2019.
Shortly after, the authority extended the opening of the polls by one hour until 8:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. GMT). Around midnight, the president of the Anie, Mohamed Charfi, announced “an average participation rate of 48.03%”, calculated by averaging the readings by prefecture (58 in number) while the participation rate corresponds to the number of voters divided by the number of registered voters.
Speaking to the media on Monday, Mr. Aouchiche denounced “planned and complete fraud,” expressing his “great concern” over the “lack of transparency” and “the ambiguity surrounding the process of collecting and announcing provisional results.”
“In-depth investigation”
“The country finds itself in a very uncomfortable, even dangerous situation,” said the head of the FFS, demanding “a thorough investigation” to “determine responsibilities, especially concerning the Anie”, which is supposed to “ensure the transparency” of the vote.
“The ANIE bears full responsibility for these dangerous excesses which are undermining the election,” criticised Mr Aouchiche, announcing an appeal against the preliminary figures before the Constitutional Court.
This body will have to examine all appeals and validate the final results.
On Sunday, Anie announced a victory for Mr. Tebboune with “94.65% of the vote” and “5.32 million votes” out of “5.63 million votes” for the three candidates, without communicating the blank or invalid ballots, nor new figures on participation.
For analyst Hasni Abidi, Mr. Tebboune’s record score is “not a surprise”, but he failed to mobilize voters: “he has only won 319,000 votes since 2019 and has only turned out a little over 5 million voters out of 24 million registered, or less than a quarter.”
In an unprecedented move around midnight on Sunday, the three candidates, including Mr Tebboune, issued a joint statement to denounce “irregularities in the results announced by the Anie”.
They criticized “a vagueness and contradictions in the participation figures”, also mentioning “an error in the announcement of the percentages for each candidate” and “data contradictory with the vote counting reports” sent by the local electoral commissions.
During the night, the Anie responded that “it continued to receive the originals of the reports” from the prefectures “which it will transmit to the Constitutional Court upon receipt”.
bur-abh/fka/hme
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