Elections in Algeria: A hot space

Last updated on September 11th, 2021 at 07:58 am

Looking with sceptic’s eyes, Algeria is holding a parliamentary election which is otherwise boycotted by an influential protest movement. This is happening due to a lot of factors such as political instability, a sharp drop in oil revenue and the adverse situation of the pandemic.

These reasons led to a mass protest as people were dissatisfied and felt being cheated upon, as a result, the president stepped down in 2019. This year the officials were very alert and conscious while reaching out to voters and spreading their propaganda, they chose the clear message that said, “you won’t change, cast your ballot”. This slogan was also effective as the government fears a repeat of the historically low turnout seen in recent polls.

On the positive side, we can see that more independent candidates stood this time than before and for this all thanks to new rules on funding. It is also notable that for the first time in an Algerian election, women make up half of the candidates. For the government’s critics, the pace of change has not been fast enough. They say the same people still wield real power in the country.

READMORE: Eskom announces load shedding exercise in South Africa

But with the introduction of new rules, Members of Parliaments who have served two or more electoral terms are automatically barred from running again. Eliminating the doubts and traces of corruption, more than 1,200 candidates who were suspected to be involved in suspicious activities and transactions have been already removed from the electoral commission list. When it comes to financing the campaigns, a huge number of foreign donors have been banned and also independent candidates who age below 40 years have been provided with 300,000 dinars from government grants.

These election results are expected to come out by Monday. This time Africa is in a tough prime spot as this election marks the third vote to happen since President Abdelaziz Bouteflika resigned in April 2019.

He was forced to resign after thousands of people participated in nationwide protests debating against his bid for a fifth term in office. His actions and involvements in corruption and cronyism were sprouting and thus people protested for him to step down.