Algeria: an election for show
On Tuesday, 3 September, the curtain came down on a dull and unattractive election campaign. In every corner of the country, Algerians were completely indifferent to an election in which there was nothing at stake and not the slightest hope for change. The die was cast as soon as it was announced that the presidential elections would be brought forward to 7 September instead of 12 December. What is more, no one still understands why the election date has been brought forward by three months.
It is true that last April there was a major clandestine movement led by General Djebbar Mehenna, head of external security, to oust Abdelmadjid Tebboune. The plan was revealed in broad daylight by Colonel Boualem Bennacer, former Algerian consul in Alicante (Spain). This happened during the trial of Colonel Tarik Amirat, former head of the Algerian secret services office in Paris. Called as a witness on 11 February 2024 before the Blida military court, Colonel Bennacer surprised everyone by outlining the plot to oust Tebboune in front of a stunned audience. Petrified, the president of the Blida military court quickly postponed the hearing to a later date.
President Tebboune was expected to react to these serious revelations. Nothing came of it. The tenant of the El-Mouradia presidential palace plays dead. He will continue to play dead when the head of the national police, Bencheikh Farid, places before him a complete dossier on the plot against him and his chief of staff, Boualem Boualem.
Colonel Bennacer and police chief Farid Bencheikh paid the highest price for their loyalty. The former Algerian consul in Alicante was arrested, tortured and imprisoned to this day. His brother Nacer, a police commissioner, accompanied him to prison for no reason. Not without having passed through the torture cells of the General Directorate of Internal Security.
As for the national police chief, he was removed from his post and spent a few days in the DGSI premises before being released for reasons yet to be verified.
In the whole affair, Tebboune emerged victorious without leaving a feather in his cap. The conspirators also emerged unscathed. And the plan of the shadow decision-makers will be carried out to the letter.
They are hand-picking the candidates who will compete with the presidential candidate who will succeed him. Two unknowns, without substance or stature. They will campaign according to his instructions. Not the slightest criticism of Tebboune, elevated to the status of untouchable God. Not the slightest reference to his record or his flagrant breaches of the law.
Tebboune, on the contrary, is running without an electoral programme, blithely violating the electoral law, which requires him to present a medical certificate of good health and a declaration of assets. He will present nothing. He has the blessing of the decision-makers behind the scenes. That is more than enough. His huge gaffes, which will make him a laughing stock, are ignored by a press that takes orders from him and by competitors who take orders from him.
Claiming to have fought against the Bouteflika clan, Tebboune is not reminded that he is the only minister in independent Algeria to have received the highest decoration, the Order of National Merit, awarded to him by the late President Bouteflika. Tebboune received this distinction for having donated a 1,000 m² plot of land in Algiers' most exclusive neighbourhood. Tebboune, who was Minister of Housing at the time, pulled off a real feat. It was almost impossible to find a single square metre in an area infested by the regime's big tycoons.
Nor will anyone remember Tebboune's images of him crawling on all fours before Bouteflika to greet the sheikh of a zaouia in Adrar, in the south of the country. And no one could remind Tebboune how he was rebuked in public and in front of the television cameras by former Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal - so many exploits by the former fighter against the Bouteflika clan!
Among the most memorable gaffes of the campaign were his pompous declaration in Oran that ‘Algeria is the third largest economy in the world’. Or in Constantine, when he called on Egypt to ‘open the borders with Gaza, the Algerian army is ready, and the world will see what we are capable of doing’. These and many other similar statements deserve a place in the Guinness Book of Foolishness.
Abdelmadjid Tebboune need not worry about what the electorate might think of him. His second term in office is assured and the vote on 7 September is no more than a formality. At best, those in charge would like to see a higher turnout than in 2019, just 36% including ballot box stuffing. Otherwise, the Algerian regime will go on quietly and no matter what happens.