Algeria votes this weekend… with opposition voice silenced

Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. (Ludovic Marin/ AFP)

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, standing as an independent, seeks re-election in a three-way presidential race on Saturday.His administration has tightened rules on speech and political activism.Opposition figures and journalists have been jailed, or banned from publishing anything. 

After two years of new repressive laws and a crackdown on political speech, Algeria goes to the polls on Saturday with many critics of the current administration muzzled.

In April, a new penal code criminalised new types of speech and stiffened penalties for existing offences, including defaming state institutions and disclosing information that “threatens security” or “harms the image” of the army or security services.

Those laws showed that Algerian authorities had zero tolerance for pluralism, said Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, Amjad Yamin.

The “clampdown on civic space” served only to “illustrates the authorities’ commitment to maintaining a zero-tolerance approach towards dissenting opinions”, he said.

In May this year, political activist Karim Tabbou was given a six-month suspended sentence for crimes such as “incitement to unarmed assembly” and “insulting a civil servant”.

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In August, he was asked to sign a pledge that he would not participate in any political activities or television programs. He refused. A magistrate tightened the measures imposed on him, and he is now forbidden from publishing or writing through any medium, including social media, from taking part in news conferences or television shows, and from engaging in any political activity.

In 2022, journalist Mustapha Bendjama and researcher Raouf Farrah were sentenced to two years for receiving funding to “commit actions undermining state security”, and “publishing classified information on electronic networks”.

Their sentences were reduced to 12 months, but in February last year they were taken in after activist Amira Bouraoui escaped the country in violation of an August 2021 order stopping him from leaving Algeria.

Although Farrah was released, journalists including Merzoug Touati, Mustapha Bendjama and Farid Alila remain in custody or are restricted. 

Yamin called for their unconditional release.

“The authorities must end their ongoing repressive crackdown, immediately release those arrested solely for peacefully exercising their human rights and ensure people’s rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association in the country are protected,” he said.

The elections

The candidates this weekend are incumbent Abdelmadjid Tebboune standing as an independent, Hassani Cherif Abdelaali of the Movement of Society for Peace, and  Youcef Aouchiche of the Socialist Forces Front.

Algerian presidential candidate Youcef Aouchiche held a campaign meeting in the northern city of Bejaia on 19 August 2024. (AFP)

AFP

Tebboune came into office in 2019 through Hirak protests that unseated Abdelaziz Bouteflika. But his five-year rule has seen little advancement and more repression.

The National Independent Authority for Elections (ANIE) says there are 24.4 million registered voters. Algerians in the diaspora, 865 490 voters, had an opportunity to cast their votes on Monday.

In 2019, when Tebboune assumed office there was a 39.9% voter turnout. 

The elections were due last year, but Tebboune postponed them to September.

Since independence in 1962, Algeria has never had a smooth transition of political power. Ahmed Ben Bella, the country’s founding president, was overthrown three years into office by Houari Boumediene.

Boumediene died in office in 1978 and was succeeded by Houari Boumediene who stepped down after a coup in 1992. Thereafter, a decade-long civil war was ensured. 

The News24 Africa Desk is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation. The stories produced through the Africa Desk and the opinions and statements that may be contained herein do not reflect those of the Hanns Seidel Foundation.

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