Abdelmadjid Tebboune re-elected Algerian president

Abdelmadjid Tebboune has been declared the winner of Saturday’s presidential election in Algeria.

Mohamed Charfi, head of the Algerian electoral commission, told journalists on Sunday that Tebboune, the incumbent president, had won with over 90 percent of the votes.

“Of 5,630,000 voters recorded, 5,320,000 voted for the independent candidate Abdelmadjid Tebboune, accounting for 94.65 percent,” he said.

Charfi said, while announcing the results, that the body had worked to ensure transparency and fair competition among all candidates.

The closest contenders, Abdelaali Hassani Cherif and Youcef Aouchiche, amassed three percent and two percent of votes respectively.

The total turnout was said to have been 48 percent.

Cherif’s campaign team reportedly said polling station officials were pressured to inflate results.

The campaign team, citing its own rallies from regions, added that the candidate had won far more votes than had been announced.

Throughout the campaign period, activists and international organisations, including Amnesty International, railed against the campaign season’s “repressive atmosphere” and the alleged harassment and prosecutions of those involved in opposition parties, media organisations and civil society groups.

During his campaigns, Tebboune had promised to raise unemployment benefits, pensions and public housing programmes, all of which he increased during his first term as president.

He was first elected in 2019 during the mass “hirak” (movement) protests that forced Abdulaziz Bouteflika from power after 20 years.

The protests brought hundreds of thousands of people into the streets every week for more than a year demanding an end to corruption and the ousting of Bouteflika.