In Algeria, the “anticipated” presidential election will be organized on September 7, 2024

No reason has been given to explain the early holding of this presidential election, the first since December 2019.

Algeria will choose a new head of state next September, three months before the date initially planned. “It was decided to organize an early presidential election on September 7, 2024”declared the Presidency of the Republic on Tuesday March 21.

No reason has been given to explain the early holding of this election and the current president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, 78, has not yet announced whether he will run for a second term. He had been hospitalized for several months in Germany after contracting Covid at the end of 2020. At the beginning of March, the French presidency declared that Abdelmadjid Tebboune was to go to France this fall.

This declaration was made at the end of a meeting chaired by Abdelmadjid Tebboune, in the presence of his Prime Minister, the heads of the two houses of Parliament, the chief of staff of the army and the president of the Constitutional Court. “The electorate will be convened on June 8, 2024”adds the press release.

Tebboune succeeded Bouteflika

The last presidential election, won by Abdelmadjid Tebboune with 58% of the votes and marked by a strong abstention, took place on December 12, 2019. He succeeded Abdelaziz Bouteflika, forced to resign in 2019 under pressure from the army and Hirak, a popular protest movement. The former president, who remained in power for twenty years, died in September 2021.

Very weakened by a stroke from 2013, Abdelaziz Bouteflika still ran for a fourth term in 2014, and tried to obtain a fifth in 2019, provoking the wave of protests which pushed him to resign. The Hirak had broadened to demands for political reforms and increased freedoms.