Polling stations open ahead of expected victory for Abdelmadjid Tebboune

It is a vote without any real surprises: more than 24 million Algerians are called to the polls, Saturday, September 7, for a presidential election, which should see the re-election of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune for a second term. The polling stations opened at 9 a.m. and will close at 8 p.m., the results could be released Saturday evening, with an official announcement expected no later than Sunday.

The re-election of Mr Tebboune, 78, is all the more certain as four leading parties support his candidacy, notably the National Liberation Front (FLN, 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 more than a comedy”estimates on Facebook, Mohamed Hennad, expert in political sciences.

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 (MSP), the main Islamist party, and Youcef Aouchiche, 41, a former journalist and senator, head of the Front of Socialist Forces (FFS), the oldest opposition party, based in Kabylie.

The challenge 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 the Cermam Study Center 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 massive 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 powerful army, Mr. Tebboune’s predecessor, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, after 20 years of reign.

Faced with the specter of low turnout, Mr. Tebboune and his opponents have crisscrossed the country, but the election campaign has generated little enthusiasm. Algerians living abroad, 865,490 voters according to the Anie electoral authority, have been voting since Monday.

In foreign policy, there is a consensus on the Palestinian and Sahrawi causes, defended by all the contenders, the three candidates 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).

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 “aammi Tebboune” (Tonton Tebboune) has pledged to give 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.

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” And “a zero tolerance approach to dissenting views”According to the National Committee for the Liberation of Prisoners (CNLD), dozens of people linked to the Hirak or to the defense of freedoms are still imprisoned or prosecuted.