Algeria president re-elected with over 84 per cent of votes

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. [Courtesy]

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has won a second term with 84.3 percent of the vote in last week's election, final results showed Saturday, down from an initial count contested by his challengers.

The preliminary results issued by the North African country's electoral authority ANIE on Sunday gave Tebboune nearly 95 percent support, prompting other candidates to challenge the results in appeals to the Constitutional Court.

The court's president, Omar Belhadj, announced on Saturday the official count, with Tebboune far ahead of his two little-known challengers.

"We announce that Mr Abdelmadjid Tebboune is elected for a second term, and will assume his responsibilities when he swears in," Belhadj said in remarks broadcast live on national TV and radio stations.

The 78-year-old incumbent had been widely expected to win comfortably and was focused instead on securing a high turnout, which according to Belhadj stood at 46.1 percent in the September 7 ballot.

Tebboune was elected in December 2019 with 58 percent of the vote, despite a record abstention rate above 60 percent, amid the mass Hirak pro-democracy protests.

He has since drawn criticism over his human rights record.

According to Amnesty International, Algerian authorities under Tebboune "have maintained their repression of civic space" and "a zero-tolerance approach to dissenting opinions".

Hasni Abidi, an analyst at the Geneva-based CERMAM Study Center, has said turnout was a key issue for Tebboune, who wanted to be "a normal president, not a poorly elected one".

Campaign promises

Challenger Abdelaali Hassani, who heads the moderate Islamist party the Movement of Society for Peace, submitted his challenge to the vote count on Tuesday, a day after denouncing the results as "fraud".

Youcef Aouchiche, head of the centre-left Socialist Forces Front, later followed suit, accusing the electoral authority ANIE of "forging" the result.

In an unprecedented move, all three campaigns -- including Tebboune's -- also issued a joint statement late Sunday alleging "irregularities" in ANIE's results, adding they wanted to make the public aware of "vagueness and contradictions in the participation figures".

The preliminary results announced by ANIE said that Tebboune had won "94.65 percent of the vote", with Hassani receiving 3.17 percent and Aouchiche 2.16 percent.

The final results gave Hassani 9.56 percent of the votes, and Aouchiche 6.14 percent.

More than 24 million Algerians were registered to vote in this election, out of a population of 45 million.

According to the figures released by the court, 11.2 million of them turned out on September 7, with 9.4 million valid ballots.

Tebboune became president after a widely boycotted election and persistent pro-democracy protests that finally petered out under his tenure after policing was ramped up and hundreds put in jail.

He had touted economic successes during his first term, including more jobs and higher wages in Africa's largest exporter of natural gas.

Although Algeria's economy has grown at an annual rate of about four percent over the past two years, it remains heavily dependent on oil and gas to fund its social programmes.