The National Elections Authority in Algeria announced today, Monday, that two-thirds of the electorate supported the constitutional amendments in a referendum that witnessed a modest vote.
The head of the Elections Authority, Mohamed Charfi, said in a press conference in Algiers that 66.80% voted yes in favor of the amendments that President Abdelmadjid Tebboune called for to approve after his election in late 2019.
Sharqi added that after the results of the referendum, Algeria will enter a new era, as he put it.
The authority supervising the elections announced earlier that the rate of participation in the referendum was 23.7%.
She added that more than 5 and a half million people participated in the vote.
The turnout indicates that one out of every four registered voters cast his vote on this ballot.
The result of the referendum is preliminary and is subject to appeal before the Constitutional Council within 10 days of the announcement.
The voting process took place in the absence of President Tebboune, who has been in Germany for days to conduct checks, and official sources described his health condition as good, and that the process took place in an exceptional circumstance in light of the outbreak of the Coronavirus.
The Algerian presidency considers the constitutional amendment as the first fruit of the comprehensive political reform program it adopts, and that the completed amendments establish a "new Algeria".
On the other hand, many supporters of the popular movement in Algeria reject the proposed constitution, viewing it as a comedy aimed at diverting attention from the continued control of the old ruling elite on power.
The most prominent articles
and among the most prominent articles in the proposed draft constitution are defining the presidential and parliamentary mandates, and including them among the articles that are not subject to amendment, in addition to an article that gives the president of the republic the authority to send army forces outside the country for the first time in the history of independent Algeria.
According to the proposed new constitution, the president of the republic will be obligated to appoint a prime minister from the majority that wins the general elections, but this obligation lapses in the event that the elections produce a parliamentary majority loyal to the president.
The constitution also provides for the first time to establish a constitutional court in place of the Constitutional Council, granting it the right to monitor decisions taken in exceptional cases, as well as abolishing the legislative right of the President of the Republic during parliamentary holidays.
The presidential mandate was defined in only two terms and placed under the non-amending articles.
According to the new amendments, the president can send forces abroad after the approval of two-thirds of the members of Parliament, and the popular movement was included in the preamble to the constitution, along with important events in the history of Algeria, and Tamazight was also included in the constitutional articles that are not subject to amendment.
In the section on freedoms, the proposed constitution stipulated a ban on suspending media activity and dissolving parties and associations except by judicial decision, in addition to removing the Minister of Justice from membership of the Supreme Judicial Council.
In addition, a system for managing municipalities facing development difficulties has been established.