Algeria's FNL survives in the face of high abstention

Election day was marked by calls for boycotts by opposition parties and Hirak, a popular protest movement that has been shaking the country for the past two years and which has been calling for reforms in the country in search of a new political regeneration in the face of the omnipresence of the National Liberation Front and the army. 

However, the big winner of these elections was the National Liberation Front, which has controlled the Algerian lower house since independence from France in 1962. The FLN won 105 of the 407 seats in the new National People's Assembly, although it lost 69 seats from the previous elections, while a coalition of independents, spread over 800 lists out of 1500, became the second favourite parliamentary force among Algerians, winning 78 seats. The FNL's traditional ally, the Rassemblement Nationale Démocratique (RDN), won 57 seats, one of the forces that has lost the most power in recent years.

Algerians had to choose between 2,288 lists, of which more than 1,200 declared themselves "independent", a first in Algerian history. These lists were openly encouraged by a government seeking to renew its legitimacy in the face of citizen fatigue. The emerging assembly could thus seal an alliance between the traditional parties (FLN and RND), the independents, a very heterogeneous group, and the legalist Islamists.

The third most voted option among Algerians was the Movement of the Society for Peace (MSP), an Islamist party, which won 64 seats. The el Mustakbal Front (Future), which is close to the ruling party, and the Al Binaa Movement (National Construction) won 48 and 40 respectively, while eight other parties won between one and three seats, such as the opposition Yil Yadid and the Good Governance Front.

According to the Independent National Electoral Authority, the body overseeing the electoral process, thanks to incentives from the government, which is working to instil a sense of renewal, more than 13,000 candidates are under the age of 40, and of these nearly 5,700 are women. However, the next assembly will be almost exclusively male, with only 34 women elected (out of 8,000 candidates), down from 146 previously, due to the abolition of a quota system introduced in 2012.

This is the third citizens' consultation to take place in Algeria since the departure from power of former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika in 2019, who led the country for 20 years under pressure from street mobilisation and the military leadership that had kept him in power. 24 million Algerians were called to the polls in a legislative election marked by a record abstention rate, numbers that cast a shadow over the government's strategy, which had presented the referendum as the "end of Hirak" and the birth of "the new Algeria". 

Algeria's president, who many still link to the old National Liberation Front leadership, and the army leaders behind him had faith in parliamentary elections as a way to end more than two years of protests. The Algerian president had announced new political reforms to build the "new Algeria" with the aim of implementing the political reforms demanded by a citizenry facing a serious economic crisis, marked by falling energy prices and the corruption of a political class installed in power. 

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has already chosen to ignore the turnout figure. "For me, turnout is not important. What matters to me is that those whom the people vote for have sufficient legitimacy," he argued after voting.

The turnout rate at the close of polling stations in these early elections for Algeria's National People's Assembly is estimated at less than 23.03%, reaching the lowest level in Algeria's history, according to figures given by ANIE president Mohamed Charfi. Only 5.6 million people participated in this boycotted election, with the highest turnout in the big cities, close to 40%, in Tamarraset in southern Algeria, and the lowest in the Kabylia region, where it was less than 1 % according to Efe. 

These were the last elections held since the end of 2019 after the presidential elections and the constitutional referendum with an abstention rate of 60% in the election of Abdelmajid Tebboune as president of Algeria and 76% in the consultation on the reform of the Constitution last November.

There is much expectation as to what will happen now in Algeria's legislative elections, given the country's poor economic situation and the insistence of protesters who continue to demand "a civilian and not a military system".