Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has won a second term with 84.3 percent of the vote in last week’s election, final results announced Saturday showed, down from an initial count contested by rivals.
The preliminary results issued by the North African country’s electoral authority ANIE on Sunday gave Tebboune nearly 95 percent support, prompting other candidates to challenge the results in appeals to the Constitutional Court.
The court’s president, Omar Belhadj, announced on Saturday the official count, with Tebboune far ahead of his only two challengers.
“We announce that Mr.Abdelmadjid Tebboune is elected for a second term, and will assume his responsibilities when he swears in,” Belhadj said in remarks broadcast live on national TV and radio stations.
The 78-year-old incumbent had been widely expected to breeze through the election and was focused instead on securing a high turnout, which according to Belhadj stood at 46.1 percent in the September 7 ballot.
More than 24 million Algerians were registered to vote in this election.
Tebboune was elected in December 2019 with 58 percent of the vote, despite a record abstention rate above 60 percent, amid the mass Hirak pro-democracy protests.
Presidential candidate Abdelaali Hassani, who heads the moderate Islamist party the Movement of Society for Peace, on Tuesday submitted his challenge to the vote count, a day after denouncing the results as “fraud.”
Youcef Aouchiche, head of the center-left Socialist Forces Front, later followed suit, accusing the electoral authority ANIE of “forging” the result.
In an unprecedented move, all three campaigns — including Tebboune’s — also issued a joint statement late Sunday alleging “irregularities” in ANIE’s results, adding they wanted to make the public aware of “vagueness and contradictions in the participation figures.”
The preliminary results announced by ANIE said that Tebboune had won “94.65 percent of the vote,” with Hassani receiving 3.17 percent and Aouchiche 2.16 percent.
The final results gave Hassani 9.56 percent of the votes, and Aouchiche 6.14 percent.
Tebboune became president after widely boycotted elections and mass pro-democracy protests from 2019 that died out under his tenure as policing ramped up and hundreds were put in jail.
He had touted economic successes during his first term, including more jobs and higher wages in Africa’s largest exporter of natural gas.
Although Algeria’s economy has grown at an annual rate of about four percent over the past two years, it remains heavily dependent on oil and gas to fund its social programs.
Algeria president re-elected with 84.3 percent of votes: official results
https://arab.news/n8udh
Algeria president re-elected with 84.3 percent of votes: official results
- Tebboune was far ahead of his only two challengers
- More than 24 million Algerians were registered to vote in this election
UN-sanctioned migrant smuggler killed in western Libya
- In June 2018, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Al-Dabbashi, along with another five Libyan traffickers
CAIRO: A notorious militia leader in Libya, sanctioned by the UN for migrant trafficking across the Mediterranean Sea, was killed on Friday in a raid by security forces in the west of the country, according to Libyan authorities.
Ahmed Oumar Al-Fitouri Al-Dabbashi, nicknamed Ammu, was killed in the western city of Sabratha when security forces raided his hideout. The raid came in response to an attack on a security outpost by Al-Dabbashi’s militia, which left six members of the security forces severely wounded, according to a statement issued by the Security Threat Enforcement Agency, a security entity affiliated with Libya’s western government.
Al-Dabbashi, who was also sanctioned by the US Treasury for trafficking, was the leader of a powerful militia, the “Brigade of the Martyr Anas Al-Dabbashi,” in Sabratha, the biggest launching point in Libya for Europe-bound African migrants.
Al-Dabbashi’s brother Saleh Al-Dabbashi, another alleged trafficker, was arrested in the same raid, added the statement.
In June 2018, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Al-Dabbashi, along with another five Libyan traffickers. At the time, the UN report said that there was enough evidence that Al-Dabbashi’s militia controlled departure areas for migrants, camps, safe houses and boats.
Al-Dabbashi himself exposed migrants, including children, to “fatal circumstances” on land and at sea, and of threatening peace and stability in Libya and neighboring countries, according to the same report.
Al-Dabbashi was also sanctioned by the US Treasury for the same reason.
Libya has been a main transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East. The country was plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
The country has been fragmented for years between rival administrations based in the east and the west of Libya, each backed by various armed militias and foreign governments.
