“Since the start of the Hirak in February 2019 and the departure of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, this is the fourth ballot that Algeria has organized, after the presidential election of December 2019, the referendum on the constitutional revision of November 2020 and the legislative elections of June 2021, with a high boycott rate as a common point. For these local 2021, there is a slight improvement with 35% of the vote, but the defection remains considerable, a fortiori for a local election “, observes the online media TSA. Participation in local elections in Algeria was higher on Saturday, November 27 than in previous elections, gaining 12 points compared to the legislative elections to reach around 35.97%. That is more than 8 million voters out of 23 million registered for municipal and departmental, according to the independent electoral authority ANIE.
The three weeks of campaigning had been lackluster, with candidates not very active in convincing voters, apart from posters and a few rallies. A total of 115,230 candidates were in contention in the 1 541 communes, and they were 18,910 postulants to dispute the departmental seats in 58 wilayas (prefectures). Women represented only 15% of all applications.
“The power insists on ‘imposing its will despite the dishonorable results recorded in previous elections.'”
Mohamed Hennad, former professor of political scienceto AFP
After having voted, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune called these ballots “last step for the building of a modern state”, promising to build “an economically strong state” as part of “democracy and citizens’ freedom”. For everyday El Watan, “the elections did not, despite their proximity character, not drain crowds”, illustration of the fact that voters “still do not trust the electoral act”. El Watan recalled that in previous local elections in 2017, attendance had exceeded 44%, with more than ten million voters out of 22 million.
The crowd remained “weak, contrary to what everyone hoped”, especially because of “indifference” of the population, analyzed for AFP Toufik Bougaada, professor of political science at the University of Algiers. He nevertheless pointed out that the rate “is real and truly represents the electorate”, despite some abuse which does not affect the general percentage. “In Algeria, we have overcome the problem of generalized fraud”, believes the political scientist. According to Algerian media, the elections took place without major incidents unlike previous polls. After the November 2020 referendum and the legislative elections, these elections were a new test for President Tebboune, who promised to renew all the institutions of the Bouteflika era that he considered “gangrened by fraud and dirty money”.