Abdelmadjid Tebboune is the clear favourite in a vote with no hope of change

The current president, Abdelmajjid Tebboune, aged 78, will run for a second term on Saturday. He faces no opponent of his stature.

Africa’s largest country is preparing to vote on Saturday, September 7, for the presidential election. Some 24 million Algerians are called to the polls. A vote that is decided in advance, with no stakes. The current president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, is the overwhelming favorite. Abdelmadjid Tebboune is heading straight for a second five-year term. At 78, this former prefect enjoys the support of the entire state apparatus. A locked press, social networks flooded with his TikTok videos, dozens of opponents imprisoned, the former single party FLN at his side: a steamroller with no opponent of his size.

There are two candidates who have been authorized to participate. Abdelaali Hassani, a 57-year-old public works engineer, president of the main Islamist party, the Movement of Society for Peace (MSP) and Youssef Aouchiche, a 41-year-old former journalist and senator, since 2020, head of the Socialist Forces Front (FFS), a historic opposition party, very established in the rebel territory of Kabylia, which has been boycotting the elections since 1999. These extras have only one role, to increase participation, particularly in Kabylia, the only issue in the election. In the last elections, in 2019, participation did not exceed 40% in the entire country and was 0.18% in Kabylia, the lowest in history. This time, Abdelmajjid Tebboune would dream of being a well-elected president.

His first term had started well. He had managed to ride the wave of the popular Hirak protest movement in 2019, which had led to the resignation of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Abdelmadjid Tebboune had pardoned dozens of political prisoners and sentenced those close to the government. A major clean-up, but without a future. The demonstrations were then all banned due to Covid-19, and the leaders of the movement were imprisoned. Today, there are still more than 200 political prisoners, according to defenders of freedoms.

The current president denies this repression of dissent. There are no political prisoners in Algeria, according to Abdelmadjjid Tebboune, who presents himself as a father figure. Uncle Tebboune, his new nickname, prefers to focus on the economy, with colossal promises, doubling the salaries of civil servants and creating 450,000 new jobs, all thanks to the country’s enormous gas resources, the price of which has exploded with the war in Ukraine. Algeria, the largest country in Africa, is now the third largest economy on the continent, with 4% growth, Algeria whose role is now crucial in supplying Europe with gas.

But Algeria remains very much alone in the concert of nations. A deep crisis exploded this summer when Paris confirmed its support for neighboring Morocco on the explosive issue of Western Sahara, whose independence Algeria defends. Since then, the falling out has been total. The Algerian ambassador to France was immediately recalled. The hugs between Emmanuel Macron and Abdelmadjid Tebboune are now only a distant memory.