After the departure of long-time ruler Bouteflika, many Algerians hoped for more democracy. According to critics, President Tebboune is heading in a different direction – and will now remain in office for several more years.
According to preliminary results, incumbent Abdelmadjid Tebboune clearly prevailed in the presidential election in Algeria and won a second five-year term. Tebboune received 94.6 percent of the votes, said the head of Algeria's electoral authority, Mohamed Charfi. The two opposing candidates had no chance at all and received only three and two percent of the votes cast respectively.
At just 48 percent, voter turnout was similarly low to five years ago. The victory therefore has a bitter aftertaste for Tebboune and is also an expression of the frustration felt by many people in the North African country. In the last election in 2019, voter turnout was historically low at just under 40 percent.
The result will be Constitutional Court checked
After the provisional result has been announced, it will be examined by Algeria's Constitutional Court, which will, among other things, deal with possible appeals. Only then will the official final result be announced. This process can take up to three weeks. However, the final results in Algeria usually do not differ from the provisional results.
Many Algerians were indifferent to the election, which ended on Saturday evening. Trust in politics has suffered greatly, also due to restrictions on civil rights. Human rights have been “steadily eroded by the dissolution of political parties, civil society organizations and independent news media” as well as by arbitrary arrests, said the organization Amnesty International. In Algeria, there is now “zero tolerance” for dissenting opinions.
Tebboune enjoys the support of the military
Millions of Algerians took to the streets in mass protests in 2019 as then-long-time President Abdelaziz Bouteflika sought a fifth term after two decades in power. The protesters demanded new leadership, democratic change and an end to the rule of the military, which has, however, expanded its influence over Algerian politics.
According to experts, the security apparatus has been controlling the country from behind the scenes for decades. Tebboune also enjoys the support of the military, whose budget he doubled during his first term in office.
No democratic renewal under Tebboune
According to critics, Bouteflika, who ruled the country from 1999 to 2019, stood for authoritarian rule and rampant corruption. However, according to human rights activists and opposition members, Tebboune has also failed to achieve the democratic renewal of the country that demonstrators of the Hirak movement demanded.
Instead, the suppression of critical voices has increased, according to Amnesty International, through changes in criminal law and fabricated accusations of terrorism, among other things. Some have said that this is the most serious violation of civil rights in Algeria since the bitter civil war in the 1990s, in which an estimated 150,000 people were killed.
