Algeria, the historic hold-up of the September 7 presidential election
Abdelmadjid Tebboune, the incumbent president, was declared the winner of the presidential election with 94.65% of the vote, but his share of the vote fell by 10%. In the end, he was re-elected with 84.3% of the vote. According to the President of the Constitutional Court, however, this drop was accompanied by an increase in the number of votes obtained. These rose from 5,329,253, as announced by the President of the Independent Electoral Authority (ANIE), Mohamed Charfi, to 7,976,291 votes. In other words, 2,647,038 votes were stolen from Abdelmadjid Tebboune by Mohamed Charfi's body. Frankly, it's scandalous!
To rob the president-candidate of more than 2.5 million votes, almost half of what he would have received at the ballot box, is quite simply scandalous.
Happy consolation for the defeated
Tebboune is not the only victim of vote theft. His rivals were too. Abdelaali Hassani Cherif, president of the MSP, obtained 940,642 votes, or 9.5% of the votes cast. Whereas the ANIE results gave him just 178,797, or 3.17%. So the theft was blatant.
As far as he was concerned, the increase affected both the number of votes and the number of votes cast. The same applies to the third candidate in the running, FFS president Youcef Aouchiche. With 122,146 votes, representing 2.16% of the vote, the Constitutional Court rehabilitated him by accepting the appeal he had lodged with the other unsuccessful candidate, Abdelaali Hassani Cherif. The number of votes he received rose to 580,495, an increase of more than threefold. This represents 6.14%.
These two unfortunate losers were also robbed by ANIE, respectively by 761,845 votes for Hassani and 458,349 votes, more than the double announced by ANIE on September 8. However, the two unfortunate candidates, who knew long before the starting bell that they were losers, are delighted with the results of the Constitutional Court. The results are a welcome consolation. Their turnout rates of 9.5 and 6.14 allow them to be reimbursed for their election campaign expenses. They wouldn't have gambled on losing everything. At least, in financial terms, they could be said to have gambled without losing a penny.
With these new figures, the total number of voters rose from 5,630,196 to 11,226,065, including 1,764,637 spoilt ballots.
In all, 3,106,148 votes were stolen from the three candidates. That's a huge number. What happened to these votes between September 8, when ANIE announced the results, and September 14, when the Constitutional Court declared the official results? In this age of computerization and digitization, which President Tebboune spoke of at length throughout his first term in office, it is unacceptable to record such major errors in the announcement of the results of the most important ballot in the life of a nation.
Turnout or the unpopularity complex
For analysts familiar with the workings of the Algerian regime, there was no theft of votes from candidates. Rather, votes were stolen from voters. These 3,106,148 votes, plus the 1,764,637 non-validated votes that suddenly appeared a week after the ballot, were added to reach a rate of 46.10, close to the 48.03 figure. “ This is a historic hold-up that will go down in the history of the Algerian regime with a black stone,” comments a connoisseur of the inner workings of Algerian power.
Nevertheless, the figure of 46.10 is difficult to accept, given that the turnout at 5 p.m. on September 7 was 26.46%. In three hours, it is impossible, according to many observers and witnesses interviewed, to see almost 4 million voters rushing to the polling stations between 5 and 8 pm.
All in all, the Algerian regime has no reason to be ashamed of acknowledging the misappropriation of more than 4 million votes, provided the turnout is higher than the 39.8% for the 2019 ballot. This rate of participation is the Gordian knot of any electoral joust organized by a regime rejected by the people. The boycott of the September 7 presidential election is further proof of the unpopularity of the current government.
