AFRICA/ALGERIA - Abdelmadjid Tebboune confirmed in office: voter turnout still unclear

Algiers (Agenzia Fides) - With 94.65% of the votes cast, outgoing President Abdelmadjid Tebboune was re-elected Head of State of Algeria in the election on September 7 (see Fides, 6/9/2024). The result is, however, contested by the opposition and the independent press. The Algerian French-language daily "Le Matin" speaks in an editorial published yesterday, September 8, of a "Soviet percentage" with which Tebboune was re-elected.
The only two challengers were the Islamist Abdelali Hassani Cherif of the Movement for the Society of Peace (Algerian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood) and Youssef Aouchiche, secretary of the historic opposition party Front of Socialist Forces (Front des Forces socialistes, FFS), who received 3.17% and 2.16% of the votes cast respectively. With Tebboune's re-election considered certain, the real unknown of the election was voter turnout. The President wanted to be re-elected by a larger number of voters than in the 2019 elections. The head of the Independent National Electoral Authority (ANIE), Mohamed Charfi, is now accused by all three candidates, including President Tebboune, of having made contradictory statements about voter turnout.
On September 7, Charfi had reported an "average turnout of 48% when polling stations closed," but without specifying the number of voters in relation to the more than 24 million registered voters. Charfi had indicated the percentage (and not the "average") of votes from abroad as 19.57% (in 2019 it was 8.69%).
Unlike the turnout, which is calculated by dividing the number of voters by the total number of registered voters, the average turnout, calculated by dividing the sum of the turnouts of the "wilayas" (the 58 Algerian provinces) by 58, does not reflect the reality on the ground. Tebboune, 78, is trying to portray himself as a "popular" President by claiming a higher turnout than in previous elections. However, ANIE statistics forced him, along with his two challengers, to question the results. The three candidates issued a joint statement accusing the ANIE president of announcing contradictory results. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 9/9/2024)

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