Presidential elections were held in Algeria on Sept. 7, featuring three candidates: current incumbent President Abdelmajid Tebboune, former journalist Youcef Aouchiche, and Islamist Abdelaali Hassani Cherif.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the polls closed at 8 p.m. on Saturday, turnout figures were released, which predictably showed a low turnout (about 48%), although up from the record low 39.88% in the previous 2019 elections. Particularly low was also the turnout of Algerians abroad – less than a million, more than half of them in France – which registered just under 19%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abdelmajid Tebboune’s victory was considered a foregone conclusion, as later confirmed by the Independent National Electoral Authority (ANIE), which sanctioned his victory on the evening of Sept. 8 at the conclusion of the ballot counting, with 94,65%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In spite of the authorities’ attempt to boost voting participation by extending the closing time of polling stations and the decision to make public transportation free of charge during the elections, once again the Algerian population’s disaffection with voting proved to be still profound, especially among the younger generation, which represents one-third of the country’s population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The electoral debate that had preceded the elections had proven to be devoid of any real element of interest to the majority of Algerians, lacking content in terms of economic policy objectives, promotion of individual freedoms, and especially openness to the possibility of an independent media system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As in previous elections, the absence of any real prospect of change in a system that has remained unchanged since 1962 \u2013 the year of the country’s independence from France \u2013 whose reins are held by the military apparatus through its control over politics, discouraged most voters from going to the polls, convinced of the impossibility of change in the institutional system unless there were real means of active participation in politics, and especially those of free expression and freedom of the press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although the ballot box confirmed Tebboune’s victory for a second term, therefore, the country’s social picture, characterized by the disillusionment of the younger generation and the attempt of the older generation to opt for a solution of continuity ideally capable of bringing at least some modest results in terms of economic policy, remains virtually unchanged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abdelmajid Tebboune was first elected in December 2019, at the height of the Hirak movement’s youth protests that forced the military apparatus to have former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s candidacy withdrawn in an attempt to quell an ominous phase of discontent that threatened to turn into a more serious form of dissent toward institutions. Thanks to the constraints imposed by the management of the pandemic, as well as by a widespread crackdown, the scope and capacity of the protest movement was quickly exhausted \u2013 partly as a result also of the lack of real leadership \u2013 allowing the Algerian institutional system once again to reassume control of the situation, albeit in its now unsustainable immobility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The four years of President Tebboune’s first term in office were characterized by an attempt to respond at least in part to the increasingly evident discontent in Algerian society by attempting to make corrections in economic policy that would boost employment and stem the increasingly high cost of living. Measures that produced modest results, however, despite the sharp rise in hydrocarbon prices as a result of the emerging conflict in Ukraine, and Algeria’s concomitant increased role in the supply relationship to European countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What has been completely lacking, however, is any tangible change on the level of freedoms of expression of political thought and freedom of the press, where there has been, on the contrary, an increase in repression toward organizations that have repeatedly expressed dissent, the press and civil society organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Counterproductive in this regard was the government’s decision to prevent most of the candidates who had expressed their intention to participate from running in the elections, limiting Tebboune’s challengers to only two names. Two candidates, moreover, who in no way can be considered to be an expression of either the youth or reformist components, thereby further increasing the sense of frustration and disillusionment of the bulk of the electorate. Both have also avoided challenging the president and the institutions on the most important issues, limiting themselves to what in most cases appeared to be mere slogans, lacking any appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 2024 presidential elections, therefore, also showed how the continuity of the Algerian institutional system is still solidly unchangeable as a result of the solidity of the military apparatus that expresses it and the political system that represents its outward image, although signs of deep discontent are evident and threaten to erupt again in more acute forms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Presidential elections were held in Algeria on Sept. 7, featuring three candidates: current incumbent President Abdelmajid Tebboune, former journalist Youcef Aouchiche, and Islamist Abdelaali Hassani Cherif. When the polls closed at 8 p.m. on Saturday, turnout figures were released, which predictably showed a low turnout (about 48%), although up from the record low 39.88% in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"slim_seo":{"title":"Elections in Algeria in the wake of continuity and immutability of the military-led institutional system","description":"Elections in Algeria in the wake of continuity and immutability of the military-led institutional system"},"_slim_seo_primary_term_category":0,"_slim_seo_primary_term_post_tag":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articolo-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalstudies.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalstudies.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalstudies.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalstudies.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalstudies.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalstudies.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3563,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalstudies.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3562\/revisions\/3563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalstudies.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalstudies.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalstudies.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalstudies.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}