Election results in Algeria are in: Tebboune re-elected

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who took office following the mass public protests in 2019, has been elected for a second consecutive term, receiving 94 percent of the vote in the early elections held on September 7, becoming the country's 10th president.

According to the preliminary results from Algeria's National Independent Authority for Elections, the 78-year-old Tebboune managed to secure 94.65 percent of the vote in an election where the voter turnout was 48 percent.

Abdelaali Hassani Cherif, the candidate for the Islamist-leaning Movement of Society for Peace (MSP), received 3.17 percent of the vote, while Youcef Aouchiche, First Secretary of the Socialist Forces Front (FFS), received 2.16 percent.

Following the vote counting process, the Election Authority is submitting the election result reports to the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court will announce the final results within 10 days, provided there are no objections within 48 hours.

Tebboune had been widely expected to win since June, when the decision to move the elections, originally planned for December, forward by a few months was announced.

Tebboune, who stated that they decided on early elections for technical reasons, did not provide further details on the matter.

Tebboune, who chose to run as an independent, used the slogan 'For a Victorious Algeria' during the election process.

The election campaign of Cherif, one of the three candidates competing in the presidential election, was held under the slogan 'Opportunity', while the slogan of the third candidate, Aouchiche, was 'A Vision for Tomorrow'.

In a television speech in July, President Tebboune said, 'Algeria has achieved much in recent years. The reason for this success is not me, but the people. Algeria has made such great progress that it will enter the path of development with us.'

Algeria was experiencing serious financial problems in 2019, the year President Tebboune took office.

The country was in a poor economic state due to corruption that became widespread during the 20-year Abdelaziz Bouteflika era, which lasted from 1999 until the mass public protests in 2019.

In Saturday's elections, there was a notable increase in the percentage of voters supporting Tebboune compared to the same year when the first presidential elections were held following the popular uprising that toppled Bouteflika in April 2019.

In those elections, former Prime Minister Tebboune received 58.15 percent of the vote (compared to 94.65 percent in 2024) and won the election by a large margin over his closest rival, the Islamist-leaning Abdelkader Bengrina (17.38 percent).

Tebboune became the 10th president of Algeria, which gained its independence from France in 1962.

Despite the support of the former ruling party, the National Liberation Front (FLN), for the National Democratic Rally candidate Azzedine Mihoubi in 2019, Tebboune won the election under difficult, critical, and complex political conditions by securing the support of Sufi orders and many civil society organizations, becoming Algeria's tenth president.

While Tebboune participated in the 2024 elections as an independent candidate, he conducted his election campaign with the support of a 4-party coalition consisting of the FLN, the National Democratic Rally, the Future Front, and the Islamist-leaning National Construction Movement.

Tebboune, who is described as one of the most important figures of the old regime due to his service in various ministries and who led the government during the Bouteflika era, sees himself as one of the victims of that period following his dismissal as prime minister in 2017 and the imprisonment of his son.

News Source: AA