More than 23 million Algerians vote Saturday to elect their communal and departmental representatives. A crucial poll in the eyes of power to seal the “change” of the after-bouteflika.
Le Monde with AFP
After three weeks of a Morose election campaign, more than 23 million Algerians are expected to choose from on Saturday 27 November, their municipal and departmental elected officials. The ballot is crucial in the eyes of power, which wants to turn the page of the eventful reign of the deceased Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
The polling stations opened at 8 o’clock, found a journalist from the France-Presse agency at the Pasteur College in Algiers. They will close at 7 pm and official results should be announced on Sunday. According to the National Independent Elections Authority (ANIE), 15,230 candidates are in the running within 1,541 municipalities. They will also be 18 910 contenders to argue the departmental seats in 58 prefectures. Women represent only 15% of all applications, according to the ANIE.
In the capital, with the exception of some posters and gatherings in closed rooms, candidates have been little active.
“Do you want the change?”
“Do you want the change?”, “Institutional edification”, “sign and affix your imprint”: these are the official words of this double ballot. Formulas criticized by the Politologist and former Professor of Political Science Mohamed Hennad, who would have preferred slogans founded “on the values of citizenship”. For the political scientist, the power is able to impose its will despite the disgrace results recorded in previous polls “.
It is the third election organized under the chairmanship of Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who is committed to reforming all the institutions inherited from the twenty years of reign of Mr. Bouteflika, forced to resign in April 2019 under the pressure of the protests of the Prodémocracy Hirak and the army movement. Very weakened from 2013 by stroke, he died on September 17, 2021.
On July 5, Algeria’s independence day, President Tebboune, elected in December 2019 with 58% of the votes and a participation rate of just 40%, had insured his action in The wake of a “authentic blessed hirak”. Mr. Tebboune has initially adopted constitutional amendments during a referendum the November 2020, approved by only 23.7% voters. Second step: the anticipated legislatures of June 12, also marked by a historic abstention with 23% participation rates.
“Participate with force”
The third stage of the process, local elections, should drain more voters at the polls. “I wish the citizens forcefully participate in these elections,” said President Tebboune during an interview with Algerian media broadcast on Friday night by official television. “If the people want the change, it is high time that it operates itself on the occasion of this deadline,” he said.
The expected participation in Kabylie, a region that had boycotted the previous polls, should raise the number of voters. The Socialist Forces Front (FFS, older opposition party) has candidates in this region, which is one of its main fiefs. Independents, including former gathering leaders for culture and democracy (RCD), also participate in the vote while the party officially boycotts the municipal and in previous polls.
Participation is not the major issue of this ballot, Nuance Redouane Boudjemaa, teacher at the Faculty of Information Sciences and Communication from Algiers. It is rather the “big economic and social challenges of next year,” he says. “The collapse of purchasing power will generate the resurgence of trade union protests,” says Boudjemaa.