The participation rate in the legislative elections on Thursday July 2 in Algeria stood at 20.79% according to a provisional count by the authorities, which would constitute the lowest level ever reached if confirmed.
“These figures are provisional,” Karim Khelfane, interim president of the Independent National Electoral Authority (Anie), said late Thursday. They “will surely change and move,” he added during an intervention broadcast by the Anie page on Facebook.
Abstention was one of the major issues of this election. Voting was extended by one hour across the country in order to “allow voters to exercise their right to vote,” according to Anie. Nearly 25 million Algerians were called to vote to choose their deputies after a lackluster campaign.
The parties close to power, such as the National Liberation Front (FLN), should, unless surprisingly, dominate the new National People’s Assembly (APN). In the center of the capital, polling stations were almost deserted in the afternoon. Only election officials and a handful of voters were present.
The vote was also held against a backdrop of controversy linked to the invalidation of around a third of the lists, with several parties denouncing their exclusion from certain constituencies, particularly in the capital. Quoted by the official APS agency, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said during the day that the legislative elections were taking place in good conditions.
23% participation in 2021
The Minister of the Interior, Saïd Sayoud, for his part, did not wish, according to the TSA information site, to comment on the participation rate. “I appeal to Algerians to come out in force to the polls,” he said, according to the site.
In total, 407 seats are to be filled for a five-year term. The results should be announced in the coming days. The last legislative elections, in 2021, won by the FLN, were marked by a participation rate of 23%, the lowest in the country’s history.
They were held in the wake of Hirak, an unprecedented popular protest movement born in February 2019. This movement led two months later to the resignation of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and brought demands for political change, the fight against corruption and reform of institutions.
Gradually, a ban on gatherings, which the authorities justified by the Covid-19 epidemic, and the incarceration of the leading figures of Hirak stifled the protest from March 2020. The current president Abdelmadjid Tebboune was elected in December 2019, then re-elected in 2024.
Human rights NGOs denounce the resumption by the authorities of control of public space since the start of Hirak. The country remains faced with strong social and economic expectations, particularly among young people.
