Tebboune uses the Gaza situation to win votes

During a recent election rally in the city of Constantine, Algerian President Abdelmajid Tebboune promised to build three hospitals in the Gaza Strip if the land borders between Egypt and the Palestinian enclave are reopened, in a bid to win votes just weeks before presidential elections.

‘We swear by Allah that if they help us and open the border between Egypt and Gaza, the army is ready (to enter Gaza),’ he said. ‘If only they would open the border, in 20 days we would build three hospitals with hundreds of doctors and help rebuild what the Zionists have destroyed,’ he added. 

Last June, during the opening of the Algiers International Fair, Tebboune raised with army leaders the possibility of building such hospitals and the possibility of sending them to Gaza when possible. 

Tebboune used the election rally to once again slam Israel, condemning the ‘Zionist occupation’. Tebboune's comments have been compared to those of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who last month announced the possibility of his country intervening in the war between Israel and Hamas to protect Palestinians, as it did in Libya, Syria and the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

These comments have been widely criticised as populist, as the Algerian president seeks to exploit the Palestinian issue in an attempt to regain lost legitimacy and win votes. 

These statements on Gaza come shortly after Tebboune also pledged to supply Lebanon with fuel in the wake of this weekend's general blackout that even affected Beirut airport. 

By contrast, the president has not put forward any Algeria-related proposals and has only recalled past achievements such as those he presented during his first term in office and the challenges the country faced.

In this regard, Tebboune stressed that ‘the people of Algeria are Muslims and belong to the Arab world, not to France’. ‘Some parties tried to hijack the popular movement. They were waiting for our country to fall like other countries did, but the people saved it together with the country's army,’ he added. 

On the economy, Tebboune said the country ‘does not have a single dollar of debt’, recalling that the Algerian economy ‘is the third in Africa’ after facing numerous challenges. ‘For the first time since the country's independence, the annual state budget has reached 113 billion dollars,’ he explained. 

Tebboune promised that the next legislature, if re-elected, ‘will be an economic legislature, not a political one’, indicating that the aim in the current phase is to strengthen steel production. ‘We are now exporting cement after importing it, and our goal is for Algeria to be the first country to export phosphate, zinc and lead during the next period,’ he added.

The president also stressed that Algeria ranks ‘first in Africa and second in the Arab world in the field of seawater desalination’. 

The elections will be held on 7 September. They are the second elections in the country following the resignation in 2019 of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who died two years later.

The Algerian president, the main candidate, will face Abdelali Hassani Sharif, head of the Movement for a Society for Peace, the largest Islamic party, and Youssef Aouchish, first secretary of the Front of Socialist Forces, at the polls.