Algeria's president is likely to win a second term in Saturday's elections

Algerians go to the polls on Saturday to elect their president and determine who will rule their natural gas-rich North African nation, five years after pro-democracy protests led the military to oust the previous president after two decades in power.
Algeria is the largest country in Africa in terms of area and, with a population of almost 45 million, the second most populous country on the continent after South Africa, where presidential elections will be held in 2024 – this year there will be over 50 elections worldwide in which more than half of the world's population will take part.
Since the elections were scheduled for March – earlier than expected – there was little suspense, as President Abdelmadjid Tebboune appears to have won an easy victory against his two challengers.
The hot summer election campaign has generated little enthusiasm, except on public television, where appearances by candidates and surrogates are mandatory. On television, the election season was presented as an exciting affair.
“Voting in Algeria doesn't mean anything like it does in major democracies,” 28-year-old Kaci Taher told the Associated Press a month before the election. “Where I come from, the results and quotas are set in advance in the back room of the government. So what's the point of participating in this electoral farce?”
Tebboune was elected in December 2019 after nearly a year of weekly demonstrations demanding the resignation of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Their demands were met when Bouteflika resigned in April and was replaced by a caretaker government of his former allies, which called for new elections later in the year.
Protesters opposed holding elections too early, fearing that candidates running this year would be close to the old regime and perpetuate the corrupt system they wanted to end. Tebboune, a former prime minister seen as a confidant of Algeria's politically powerful military, emerged victorious. But his victory was marred by low turnout, widespread boycotts by protesters and tumult on election day, with crowds looting polling stations and police breaking up demonstrations.
This year, Tebboune ran as an independent candidate with the backing of several political parties, including the National Liberation Front, which has dominated Algerian politics since the country gained independence from France in 1962 after more than a decade of war.
Born in southwest Algeria, the veteran politician has described his first term as a turning point, telling voters at a campaign rally the week before the election that he had “put Algeria back on track.” To cement his legitimacy both at home and among Algeria's allies, he hopes that more of the country's 24 million eligible voters will turn out in Saturday's election than during his first term, when 39.9% turned out.
“It seems that for 'le pouvoir' in this election, the most important thing is voter turnout to give legitimacy to their candidate whose victory is a foregone conclusion,” said Algerian sociologist Mohamed Hennad, using a term often used to describe the military-backed political establishment.
26 candidates submitted preliminary documents to participate in the election, but only two were ultimately approved as Tebboune's challengers. Like the president, they also wanted a high voter turnout. Since neither of them is political newcomer, they avoided directly criticizing Tebboune during the election campaign.
Abdelali Hassani Cherif, a 57-year-old engineer from the Movement of Society for Peace party, made populist appeals to Algerian youth with the slogan “Opportunities!” and called for a boost to employment and reform of the education system, in which the French language has long played an important role alongside Arabic.
Youcef Aouchiche, a 41-year-old former journalist running for the Socialist Forces Front, campaigned on a “vision for tomorrow” and pointed to human rights problems plaguing journalists, activists and government critics in Tebboune's Algeria. It is the first time since 1999 that his party, which enjoys strong support among ethnic minorities in central Algeria, has fielded a candidate.
Andrew Farrand, director of the Middle East and North Africa at geopolitical risk consultancy Horizon Engage, said both opposition candidates were targeting the 2025 parliamentary election rather than the 2024 presidential election. Since Algerian law funds parties based on the number of seats they win in the parliamentary election, they hope the campaign will position them for a strong result in 2025.