Presidential election in Algeria: A slap in the face for the authorities, despite obvious fraud
- Military in plainclothes invade polling stations
- Tebboune as planned and without the slightest doubt
- The people's salute to the military regime
Having pulled out all the stops to ensure a comfortable turnout for an election tailor-made for a deficient regime in need of legitimacy, behind-the-scenes decision-makers were at least expecting a higher turnout than in December 2019. Combining repression and media hype against a backdrop of desertification of the political scene by any form of opposition, everything indicated that the 2024 presidential election would be the moment of renewal for a system that is unable to revitalize itself either at home or abroad. “ A moribund system that has long used misleading propaganda to the point of ridicule to make Algeria the laughingstock of the world ,” comments a connoisseur of the inner workings of Algerian power.
Confident in their lucky star, the election organizers announced the partial results at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. without resorting to fraud. In some wilayas (governorates), however, stratagems were used to create a psychological training effect in order to impress the population and get them to the polling stations en masse.
Military in plainclothes invade polling stations
While in Algiers, the country's capital, people were still asleep when the polls opened (images taken at 9:45 a.m. from rue Didouche Mourad, Place Audin, Boulevard Mohamed V, Grande Poste and rue Abdelkrim El-Khettabi show the city's main thoroughfares deserted), a few blocks away, the polling stations were crowded. In Médéa, in the Titteri, in Teleghma, in Jijel in the east and in Laghouat, 400 km south of Algiers, the polling stations were crowded.
In Teleghma, Algerian TV channels showed a real stampede in front of a voting center. On closer inspection of the local population and the TV footage, it became clear that the crowd was made up entirely of young people, not a single woman or man over the age of thirty. They all have military-style shaven heads, and not one of them is carrying a cell phone.
It was the students from the armored school and the supervisory staff who jostled for position at the entrance to the voting center. In Médéa, soldiers from the barracks housing the sector command and the town garrison, dressed in civilian clothes, filled the voting center.
In Jijel, sailors from the naval base are the voters. As in Laghouat, where the residents of the city's air base were called upon to vote. As these military personnel were not registered on the electoral rolls of the towns where they were called to vote, and did not have voter's cards, they were authorized to vote simply by presenting an identity document.
This is a massive violation of electoral law. But the Independent Electoral Authority (ANIE) solved the problem in the blink of an eye, issuing a press release at 10.30 a.m. stating: “ Voters who do not have a voting card may vote simply by presenting an identity document (national identity card, driving license or passport) ”.
The aim is to achieve a higher turnout than the 39.88% recorded in 2019. The objective seems difficult to achieve. "Algerians have massively deserted the ballot boxes. The ANIE (state election management agency) announced a national turnout of 13.11% at 1pm. With the majority of Algerians voting in the morning, it's difficult, if not impossible, for this agency to announce a turnout of around 20% at 8 p.m. ” says Athmane Maazouz, President of the RCD, one of the main opposition parties, which has managed to preserve its credibility. “ It's as if a silent word of order has spread across the country,” adds Nabila Smaïl, a lawyer representing Hirak activists.
This was confirmed at 5pm, when it was announced that the turnout was 26.46%. With two hours to go before the polls closed, it was virtually impossible to gain 15%, the minimum required to beat the 2019 figure. So we start by extending the closing time for polling stations.
“ In accordance with the provisions of Article 132, last paragraph, of Ordinance 21-01 of March 10, 2021 on the electoral system, amended and supplemented, the Independent National Elections Authority informs voters that all wilaya coordinators of the Independent Authority have been authorized to extend the closing time of polling stations to twenty (20) hours in all wilayas of the national territory, and this, after consulting their requests."
Tebboune as planned and without the slightest doubt
This extension serves to justify a veritable remontada in voter turnout. And what a remontada! The increase in turnout will be ... 120%. No less than that. Enough to make your eyes glaze over. We had to wait until 00:48, when everyone was in bed, for a dispatch from the government press agency (APS) announcing a turnout rate of 48.03%, specifying that this was a rate achieved within the country and which would fall if we added the 19.57% of the diaspora abroad. But it will still be higher than in 2019. And we could, therefore, get rid of the shame of Tebboune's first term in office.
A mandate marked by a widespread boycott, with the two wilayas (governorates) of Bejaïa and Tizi-Ouzou, the most important in Kabylia, entering the Guinness Book of Records with a historic 0% turnout. Although, at the time of going to press, Mohamed Charfi, President of the Independent Elections Authority, had not yet held his press conference to announce the official results, we can safely say that incumbent President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is still in office, with a turnout of less than 50%.
The people's salute to the military regime
A turnout of less than 50%, despite obvious fraud, and an increase of around 120% in less than three hours, is the people's best response to the powers that be. The Algerian people have thrown down the gauntlet to a military regime that continues to humiliate them and rob them of their right to decide their own fate.
A people deprived of its right to self-determination by electing, in full democracy and freedom, its president of the republic, its parliament and its local assemblies. A people who have suffered more repression in 62 years of independence than in 132 years of colonialism. A repression marked by the death of 250,000 Algerians and the disappearance of 20,000 others. Thousands of Algerians were deported to camps in the South under subhuman conditions.
All this was crowned by a five-year mandate for the Tebboune-Chengriha duo, which will go down in history as the cause of over 2,000 political prisoners, hundreds of political exiles and thousands of illegal immigrants who fled the country in boats of misfortune. Many of these young people went to feed their bodies on the sardines of the Mediterranean, which they couldn't afford on Algerian markets because of the high price.
Today, the survivors of the political opposition, whether at home or abroad, need to take advantage of this victory for the people. With power stunned by this bitter failure, it's the perfect opportunity to restore hope to the people and mobilize them to put an end to a faltering regime incapable of surviving the slightest wave of popular protest such as the Hirak of February 2019.
