More than 24 million Algerians are called today on ballot boxes for the presidential electionsin which the president’s re-election for a second term is considered almost certain Abdelmadjid Tebun and whose main stake lies in the percentage of participation.

The polling stations will remain open from 10:00 to 21:00 (Greece time). The first results are expected tonight, while an official announcement is expected to be made tomorrow, Sunday.

“The winner is known in advance”, given “the quality”, the “unusually low number” of candidates and the “conditions in which the election campaign unfolded, which was nothing short of a comedy”, estimates on Facebook the Mohammed Henad, political science specialist.

Opponents of the outgoing president are two little-known candidates: o Abdelaali Hassani, a 57-year-old public works engineer, head of the Movement Society for Peace (MSP), the main Islamist party, and Youssef Ausis41, former journalist and senator, head of the Socialist Forces Front (FFS), the oldest opposition party based in Kabylia (eastern Algeria).

Youssef Ausis

The re-election of the 78-year-old Tempting it is even more likely because four major political formations support his candidacy, mainly the National Liberation Front (FLN, formerly the only party) and the Islamist El Bina movement.

Tebun Algeria

“The president wants significant participation. It’s the first bet. He has not forgotten how he was elected in 2019 with a low percentage. He wants to be a normal president, not a president with a problematic election”, emphasizes the AFP Hasni Abidi of the Cermam Study Center in Geneva.

Abstention had broken a record (60%) in the December 2019 election which Tebun had won with 58% of the vote, while mass demonstrations were taking place for a change to the system in place since the country’s independence (1962).

This protest movement, the Hirakhad ousted Tebun’s predecessor, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, from power in April, along with the powerful military, after 20 years in power.

Faced with the specter of a low turnout, Tebun and his rivals have been criss-crossing the country since mid-August, but the election campaign, conducted remarkably in the summer heat, has generated little excitement.

Algerians abroad, 865,490 voters according to the electoral authority Anie, have been voting since Monday.

The three candidates focused on socio-economic issues, promising to improve purchasing power and straighten the economy so that it is less dependent on hydrocarbons (95% of foreign exchange receipts).

In foreign policy, there is consensus on the affairs of the Palestinians and the Sahrawi people, which all candidates support.

With the help of the natural gas mother, Tebun promised to increase wages and pensions, investment, two million new homes and 450,000 new jobs to make Algeria “Africa’s second economy” after South Africa.

His opponents promise more freedoms. The FFS candidate pledges to “free prisoners of opinion through an amnesty and review unjust laws” on terrorism or the media. The MSP candidate advocates “respect for freedoms that have been reduced to zero”.