Politics Preliminary result: Tebboune wins election in Algeria

According to preliminary results, incumbent Abdelmadjid Tebboune has clearly prevailed in the presidential election in Algeria and won a second term of another five years. Tebboune received 94.6 percent of the vote, said the chairman of Algeria's electoral authority, Mohamed Charfi. The two opposing candidates had no chance at all and received only three and two percent of the votes cast respectively.

At just 48 percent, voter turnout was similarly low as five years ago. The victory therefore has a bitter aftertaste for Tebboune and is also an expression of the frustration felt by many people in the North African country. In the last election in 2019, voter turnout was historically low at just under 40%.

Following the announcement of the provisional result, it will now be examined by Algeria's Constitutional Court, which will deal with possible appeal procedures, among other things. Only then will the official final result be announced. This process can take up to three weeks. However, the final results in Algeria do not usually differ from the preliminary results.

Many Algerians were indifferent to the election, which ended on Saturday evening. Trust in politics has suffered greatly, partly due to restrictions on civil rights. Human rights have been "steadily eroded by the dissolution of political parties, civil society organizations and independent news media" as well as arbitrary arrests, according to the organization Amnesty International. In Algeria, there is now "zero tolerance" for dissenting opinions.

Millions of Algerians took to the streets in mass protests in 2019 when the then long-term president Abdelaziz Bouteflika sought a fifth term in office after two decades in power. The protesters demanded new leadership, democratic change and an end to the rule of the military. However, the military has extended its influence on Algerian politics. According to experts, the security apparatus has been controlling the country from the background for decades. Tebboune also enjoys the support of the military, whose budget he doubled during his first term in office.

According to critics, Bouteflika, who ruled the country from 1999 to 2019, stood for authoritarian rule and rampant corruption. However, according to human rights activists and opposition members, Tebboune did not bring about the democratic renewal of the country that protesters from the Hirak movement were demanding. Instead, the suppression of critical voices has increased, according to Amnesty International, among other things through changes in criminal law and trumped-up terrorism charges. In some cases, there is talk of the most serious encroachments on civil rights in Algeria since the bitter civil war in the 1990s, in which an estimated 150,000 people were killed.