Record abstention for disputed ballot. The Algerians are waiting Friday, December 13, the results of the first round of the presidential election, the first election meeting after Bouteflika.
The Independent National Electoral Authority (ANIE) said in an SMS received by AFP that its president Mohamed Charfi will announce the results of the first round Friday at 11:00 am (10:00 GMT), a time when Algerians could invade the streets for the 43rd time as they have done for 42 weeks.
A possible second round will take place between December 31st and January 9th.
Only 39.93% of registered voters voted in the first round (41.41% in the national territory and 8.69% for Algerians abroad), according to the president of Anie Mohamed Charfi.
This rate is the lowest of all the pluralist presidential elections in the history of Algeria. It is more than ten points lower than the previous poll, the weakest so far, which in 2014 saw Abdelaziz Bouteflika's fourth victory.
No projection of results has been published. But the camp of Abdelmajid Tebboune, former brief Prime Minister of President Bouteflika in 2017, claimed Thursday night victory in the first round. "According to the first elements in our possession (...) Abdelmadjid Tebboune won the presidential election, told AFP Abdelatif Belkaim, deputy director of communication of the candidate.
Demonstration of strength
Morne in many polling stations, the day was marked in Algiers by a show of strength of "Hirak" who braved a very strong police deployment to parade en masse.
The "Hirak", the massive and unprecedented popular "movement of popular protest" of the regime that forced Mr. Bouteflika to resign, categorically rejected the holding of this election as a way to regenerate for the "system" in power since the independence of the country in 1962.
This movement demands the end of this "system" at the helm since independence in 1962, and the departure of all the old supporters or collaborators of the twenty years of Bouteflika's presidency. What are the five presidential candidates (Abdelaziz Belaid, Ali Benflis, Abdelkader Bengrina, Azzedine Mihoubi and Abdelmajid Tebboune).
After a failed first election attempt in July, the army's high command, the mainstay of the regime, openly in command since the departure of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, insisted that the elections be organized to get out of the political crisis. institutional, which has aggravated the economic situation.
Face of this high command, General Ahmed Gaid Salah, chief of staff of the army, had assured for weeks that participation would be "massive".
A crowd estimated at tens of thousands of people has managed to invade the streets of the center of the capital, despite the systematic and often brutal interventions of the police at each attempt to gather.
"Makache the vote" (no vote!), Chanted the crowd that split in the late afternoon, before the police dispersed with the truncheon the hundred remaining protesters, according to a reporter from AFP.
During the day, a small group of protesters managed to break into an electoral center in the city center. The vote was briefly suspended for evacuation.
Voting was also normal across the country except in the traditionally rebellious and mostly Berber-speaking Kabylie region, where serious incidents occurred.
A polling station was ransacked, an antenna in Anie was burned, and the police repelled tear gas canisters at demonstrators attempting to enter the headquarters of the Wilaya (prefecture) of Tizi. Ouzou, 90 km east of Algiers.
Clashes also clashed gendarmes and demonstrators in Tichy, near Béjaïa (180 km east of the capital), and six people injured in the ranks of the police, according to a security source who requested anonymity .
AFP
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