By RFPosted on 07-12-2019Modified on 07-12-2019 at 04:24

Polling stations for the Algerian election open this Saturday, December 7 in France, the poll in Algeria is scheduled for Thursday and the election campaign ends this Sunday. Nearly one million voters are expected to vote abroad over the next six days. On Friday night, for the first time in an Algerian election, the five candidates defended their program live on television.

It is a modern television set, with a blue background, with green lights. The five candidates are standing in front of desks. In front of them, four journalists pose fourteen questions. Each candidate has two minutes to answer. The five men take turns speaking.

This unpublished debate, broadcast live, is not one. The five men are content to remain in the broad outline of their programs, evoking the fragility of the Algerian economy, the place of young people, health or education. The answers are no surprise: Ali Benflis, candidate for the third time, says he wants to lighten the bureaucracy; Abdelmadjid Tebboune, former prime minister, promises to exempt from taxes those who earn less than 30,000 dinars, the average salary.

The exercise was intended, in the expression used by the presenter, democratic, But six days before the election, it remains difficult to distinguish candidates on their programs. This debate will struggle to convince opponents of the vote to make the trip next Thursday.

"They are in absolute denial"

For the law professor Mouloud Boumghard, this debate was not interesting, and not only because the televisual device was not satisfactory. " This is a non-event because it is a debate between candidates who are all from the same matrix, that of the regime and who run for a vote absolutely rejected by the Algerian people who shows it every Friday in events. The protesters do not refuse the principle of election, but they refuse it under the control of the militarized regime. You may have noticed that the candidates do not question arrests, restrictions of freedom, or even characterize the regime as authoritarian and military. They are in absolute denial simply because their function is not to represent the people but rather to represent the regime to the people, which is quite different. They want to reconstitute the civil facade of the regime in place. "

→ Read also: The presidential election in Algeria: a deception?

During the day, an immense crowd marched again in the day in Algiers to reject this election desired at all costs by the power. Amel, a young woman who has been demonstrating since the beginning of the movement, is opposed to holding the election, and she chanted again yesterday in the procession. She thinks that the vote will be held anyway, but she wants to continue to mobilize.

→ Read also: Human tide in Algiers for the last Friday before the presidential election

I think Algeria after 22 February will never be Algeria before 22 February [...] We saw very well the sign that said "the next president, clear in advance". There is a certain popular awareness, a politicization that has returned to the Algerian people.

Amel, a young protester

07-12-2019 - By Leïla Beratto

    On the same subject

    Human tide in Algiers for the last Friday before the presidential election

    Algeria: cartoonist Nime on trial for attacking the image of the president

    Algeria: first trial for corruption of former leaders opens in Algiers

    comments