Algeria: Tebboune re-elected president for second term

Algeria’s incumbent President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has been re-elected with almost 95 per cent of the vote, the country’s electoral authority ANIE said Sunday.

More than 5.3 million people voted for Tebboune, accounting for “94.65 per cent of the vote,” ANIE head Mohamed Charfi told reporters.

Tebboune, 78, has been heavily favored to secure a five-year second term, in the race against moderate Islamist Abdelaali Hassani, 57, who won 3.17 percent of the vote and socialist candidate Youcef Aouchiche, 41, who won 2.16 percent.

While Tebboune’s re-election was certain, his main focus was to boost voter participation in Saturday’s poll after a record-low abstention rate of over 60 percent in 2019.

That year, Tebboune became president amid widely boycotted elections and mass pro-democracy Hirak protests that later died out under his tenure with ramped-up policing and hundreds put in jail.

More than 24 million Algerians were registered to vote. But ANIE didn’t say how many people in total had turned out to cast their ballot on Saturday.

-‘Masquerade’-

After polling stations closed on Saturday, ANIE had announced an “average rate” of 48 percent but called it “provisional”.

Hassani’s campaign later said the figure was “strange” and denounced attempts to “inflate the results”.

It also said it had recorded “instances of proxy group voting”.

In a video posted on Facebook, the campaign’s head, Ahmed Sadouk, said the election results were a “masquerade” and disputed the turnout announced by ANIE.

He said “the results undermine the elections and tarnish the image of the country”.

ANIE, which extended the vote by one hour on Saturday for more people to vote, has yet to give the final rate of participation in the election.

“The president has been keen to have a significant turnout,” Hasni Abidi, an Algeria analyst at the Geneva-based CERMAM Study Center, told AFP. “It’s his main issue.”

Tebboune’s win Sunday was still “a victory” although he failed to win the vote of young people, who represent half of Algeria’s 45-million-strong population, Abidi said.

As a result, Abidi said, the re-elected president has been “weakened”.

All three candidates have courted the vote of young people, with promises to improve living standards and reduce dependence on hydrocarbons.

After voting in Algiers Saturday morning, the Tebboune did not mention turnout, unlike Aouchiche who called for an end to the “boycott” and Hassani who said more voters would make the election “credible”.

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– ‘Divorced politics’ –

Voters meanwhile expressed hopes that the election would transform things on the ground.

“We want this election to result in a real change… a change for the better,” said voter Hassane Boudaoud, 52.

Two women, Taous Zaiedi, 66, and Leila Belgaremi, 42, said they were voting to “improve the country”.

Ibrahim Sendjak Eddine, a day laborer, said Algerians “are looking for stability, job opportunities, work and housing”.

Yet Tebboune has touted economic successes during his first term, including more jobs and higher wages in Africa’s largest exporter of natural gas.

Although Algeria’s economy has grown at an annual rate of about four percent over the past two years, it remains heavily dependent on oil and gas to fund its social programs.

Tebboune has pledged to create 450,000 jobs if re-elected.

“I’m happy he won,” said Fahima Hamlaoui, 41, a French-Algerian living in Algiers.

“I like him. I don’t know much about him, but he gives me a good feeling,” she said.

Abidi said Tebboune “won only 319,000 votes since 2019” with just over “five million voters out of 24 million registered” who turned out to vote.

The election is a “failure”, he said.

Tebboune should now address the major deficit in political and media freedoms, with Algerians having “divorced current politics” after the Hirak protests ended, Abidi added.

Amnesty International said earlier this week Algerian authorities were continuing to “stifle civic space by maintaining a severe repression of human rights”.

Five years after the Hirak protest movement, Algeria has seen “new arbitrary arrests” while authorities maintain “a zero tolerance approach to dissenting opinions”, it said.

Dozens remain behind bars or are still being prosecuted due to their activism, according to prisoners’ rights group CNLD.