Voting extended in Algeria for presidential election, Tebboune big favorite

Voting was extended in Algeria on Saturday for a presidential election in which the outgoing head of state Abdelmadjid Tebboune, running for a second term, is considered the big favorite, and whose main issue is the turnout.

At 5:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. GMT), the turnout was 26.46%, down seven points from 2019 (33.06%), according to the electoral authority Anie. The closing of the polls was delayed by one hour to 8:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. GMT) “at the request of certain coordinators,” Anie said.

In December 2019, abstention had broken records (60%) during the first election won by Mr. Tebboune with 58% of the vote, while massive pro-democracy demonstrations were in full swing and many parties boycotted the vote.

In a polling station in central Algiers, women swelled the ranks of voters in the afternoon, who initially were mostly men, like Sidali Mahmoudi, a 65-year-old shopkeeper, who came “early to do his duty in all democracy.”

Taous Zaiedi, a 66-year-old retiree, and Leila Belgaremi, a 42-year-old accountant, voted “so that the country improves.”

A voter casts her ballot during the presidential election in Algeria, on September 7, 2024 in Algiers © AFP – –

Facing Mr. Tebboune are two little-known candidates: Abdelaali Hassani, a 57-year-old engineer and leader of the Movement of Society for Peace (MSP, the main Islamist party), and Youcef Aouchiche, 41, a former journalist and senator, who heads the Front of Socialist Forces (FFS, the oldest opposition party).

A re-election of Mr. Tebboune, 78, is all the more expected since four major parties support him, including the National Liberation Front (FLN, the former single party).

“The winner is known in advance,” given “the “reduced number” of competitors and their low notoriety, analyses political scientist Mohamed Hennad.

But Mr. Tebboune is keen “on a significant turnout. He wants to be a normal president, not a poorly elected president,” Hasni Abidi of the Cermam Study Center in Geneva told AFP.

– “point of no return” –

Of the 865,490 voters living abroad who have voted since Monday, turnout stood at 18.31% at 4:00 p.m. GMT, according to Anie.

More than 24 million voters out of 45 million inhabitants have been summoned. Public buses, the metro and the tramway are free to facilitate travel.

Abdelaali Hassani, leader of the Movement of Society for Peace (MSP) and presidential candidate, during a campaign rally in Algiers, September 3, 2024 © AFP – –

After his vote, Mr. Hassani called on Algerians to go to the polls because “a high turnout gives greater credibility to these elections.”

Mr. Aouchiche also urged “Algerians to participate in force” to emerge “definitively from the boycott and despair,” after an electoral campaign that had generated little enthusiasm.

Without mentioning the turnout, Mr. Tebboune hoped that “the winner of the presidential election would continue (his) project, which is decisive for Algeria in order to reach a point of no return in economic development and the construction of a democracy.”

The three candidates all say they want to improve purchasing power and straighten out the economy, so that it is less dependent on hydrocarbons (95% of foreign currency revenues).

Youcef Aouchiche, leader of the Socialist Forces Front (FFS) and presidential candidate, during a campaign rally in Algiers, September 3, 2024 © AFP – –

Helped by the natural gas windfall of which Algeria is the leading African exporter, Mr. Tebboune promised to raise salaries and pensions, investments, two million new homes and 450,000 new jobs, to make Algeria “the second economy in Africa”, behind South Africa.

– “Severe repression” –

At the end of the campaign on Tuesday, the man whom Internet users affectionately nickname “aammi Tebboune” (Uncle Tebboune) pledged to give young people – more than half of the population and a third of the voters – the “place that suits them”.

A voter casts his ballot during the presidential election in Algeria, on September 7, 2024 in Algiers © AFP – –

Mr. Tebboune claims that his first five-year term was hampered by Covid-19 and the corruption of his predecessor, of whom he was nevertheless a minister.

His rivals promise more freedoms. The FFS candidate pledges to “free prisoners of conscience through an amnesty and to review unjust laws” on terrorism and the media. The MSP advocates “respect for freedoms reduced to nothing”.

According to expert Abidi, five years after the Hirak protest movement, stifled by bans on gatherings linked to Covid and the arrest of its leading figures, Mr. Tebboune's record suffers from “a deficit of democracy” which could constitute a handicap during a new mandate.

A polling station during the presidential election in Algeria, September 7, 2024 in Algiers © AFP – –

The NGO Amnesty International accused the government this week of continuing to “stifle civic space by maintaining a harsh repression of human rights”, with “new arbitrary arrests” and “a zero tolerance approach to dissenting opinions”.

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