Algerians expected an uneventful election that would bestow President Abdelmadjid Tebboune a second term. Instead, they got the president himself calling into question the vote count and legal challenges from his opponents alleging fraud.
Such a surprising turn of events marks a departure for Algeria, where elections have historically been carefully choreographed by the ruling elite and military apparatus that backs it.
The country’s constitutional court has until next week to rule on the appeals from Tebboune’s two opponents. But it’s anyone’s guess how questions about the election will be resolved, whether tallies will be re-tabulated and what it means for Tebboune’s efforts to project an image of legitimacy and popular support.
WHAT’S THE CONFUSION?
Algeria’s National Independent Election Authority, or ANIE, published figures throughout election day showing a low turnout. By 5 p.m. on Saturday, the reported turnout in Algeria was 26.5 percent — far fewer than had voted by that time in the election five years ago. After unexplained delays, it said “provisional average turnout” by 8 p.m. had spiked to 48 percent.
But the next day, it reported that only 5.6 million out of nearly 24 million voters had cast ballots — nowhere near 48 percent.
It said 94.7 percent voted to re-elect Tebboune. His two challengers — Abdelali Hassani Cherif of the Movement of Society for Peace and Youcef Aouchiche of the Socialist Forces Front — won a dismal 3.2 percent and 2.2 percent of the vote, respectively.
Cherif, Aouchiche and their campaigns subsequently questioned how results were reported and alleged foul play including pressure placed on poll workers and proxy voting.
None of that surprised observers.
But later, Tebboune’s campaign joined with his opponents in releasing a shared statement rebuking ANIE for “inaccuracies, contradictions, ambiguities and inconsistencies,” legitimizing questions about the president’s win and aligning him with popular anger that his challengers had drummed up.
Cherif and Aouchiche filed appeals at Algeria’s constitutional court on Tuesday after their campaigns further rebuked the election as “a masquerade.”
WHY IS VOTER TURNOUT CLOSELY WATCHED IN ALGERIA’S ELECTION?
Turnout is notoriously low in Algeria, where activists consider voting tantamount to endorsing a corrupt, military-led system rather than something that can usher in meaningful change.
Urging Algerians to participate in the election was a campaign theme for Tebboune as well as his challengers. That’s largely due to the legacy of the pro-democracy “Hirak” protests that led to the ouster of Tebboune’s predecessor.
After an interim government that year hurriedly scheduled elections in December 2019, protesters boycotted them, calling them rigged and saying they were a way for the ruling elite to handpick a leader and avoid the deeper changes demanded.
Tebboune, seen as the military’s preferred candidate, won with 58 percent of the vote. But more than 60 percent of the country’s 24 million voters abstained and his victory was greeted with fresh rounds of protests.
His supporters had hoped for a high turnout victory this year would project Tebboune’s popular support and put distance between Algeria and the political crisis that toppled his predecessor. It appears that gambit failed after only 5.6 million out of 24 million voters participated.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE HIRAK PROTESTS?
In 2019, millions of Algerians flooded the streets for pro-democracy protests that became known as the “Hirak” (which means movement in Arabic).
Protesters were outraged after 81-year-old President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced plans to run for a fifth term. He had rarely been seen since a 2013 stroke left him paralyzed. The Hirak was jubilant but unsatisfied when Bouteflika resigned and top businessmen were charged with corruption. Protesters never coalesced around leaders or a new vision for Algeria, but called for deeper reforms to foster genuine democracy and remove from power members of what Algerians simply call “the power” — the elites from business, politics and the military thought to run the country.
Hirak protesters rejectedTebboune as a member of the old guard and interpreted most of his earlyovertures as empty gestures meant to placate them.
Before, during and after Tebboune’s election, protests continued. Then, COVID-19 hit and they were outlawed. Authorities continued to repress freedom of expression and imprison journalists and activists made famous by the pro-democracy movement, though protests restarted in 2021.
Figures from the Hirak denounced the 2024 election as a rubber stamp exercise to entrench Algeria’s status quo and called for another round of boycotts to express a deep lacking of faith in the system. Many said the high abstention rate in Saturday’s election proved Algerians were still aligned with their criticisms of the system.
“Algerians don’t give a damn about this bogus election,” said former Hirak leader Hakim Addad, who was banned from participating in politics three years ago. “The political crisis will persist as long as the regime remains in place. The Hirak has spoken.”
WHAT DOES TEBBOUNE QUESTIONING THE RESULTS MEAN?
Nobody knows. Few believe the challenges could lead to Tebboune’s victory being overturned.
Op-ed columnists and political analysts in Algeria have condemned ANIE, the independent election authority established in 2019, and its president Mohamed Charfi, for bungling elections that the government hoped would project its own legitimacy in the face of its detractors.
Hasni Abidi, an Algeria analyst at the Geneva-based Center for Studies and Research on the Arab World and Mediterranean, called it “a mess within the regime and the elite” and said it dealt a blow to both the credibility of institutions in Algeria and Tebboune’s victory.
Some argue his willingness to join opponents and criticize an election that he won suggest infighting among the elite thought to control Algeria.
“The reality is that this remains a more fragmented, less coherent political system than it ever has been or than people have ever assumed,” said Riccardo Fabiani, International Crisis Group’s North Africa director.
WHAT ARE THE STAKES?
Though Tebboune will likely emerge the winner, the election will reflect the depth of support for his political and economic policies five years after the pro-democracy movement toppled his predecessor.
Algeria is Africa’s largest country by area. With almost 45 million people, it’s the continent’s second most populous after South Africa to hold presidential elections in 2024 — a year in which more than 50 elections are being held worldwide, encompassing more than half the world’s population.
Thanks to oil and gas revenue, the country is relatively wealthy compared to its neighbors, yet large segments of the population have in recent years decried increases in the cost of living and routine shortages of staples including cooking oil and, in some regions, water.
The country is a linchpin to regional stability, often acting as a power broker and counterterrorism ally to western nations as neighboring countries — including Libya, Niger and Mali — are convulsed by violence, coups and revolution.
It’s a major energy supplier, especially to European countries trying to wean themselves off Russian gas and maintains deep, albeit contentious, ties with France, the colonial power that ruled it for more than a century until 1962.
The country spends twice as much on defense as any other in Africa and is the world’s third largest importer of Russian weapons after India and China, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s Arms Transfers Database.
Algeria election results are being questioned by the opposition candidates and the president himself
https://arab.news/pct2a
Algeria election results are being questioned by the opposition candidates and the president himself
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- Algeria is Africa’s largest country by area. With almost 45 million people, it’s the continent’s second most populous after South Africa to hold presidential elections in 2024
Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee West Bank refugee camps
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- The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups
JERUSALEM: Tens of thousands of Palestinians living in refugee camps in the occupied West Bank have left their homes as a weeks-long Israeli offensive has demolished houses and torn up vital infrastructure in the heavily built up townships, Palestinian authorities said.
Israeli forces began their operation in the refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Jan. 21, deploying hundreds of troops and bulldozers that demolished houses and dug up roads, driving almost all of the camp’s residents out.
“We don’t know what’s going on in the camp but there is continuous demolition and roads being dug up,” said Mohammed Al-Sabbagh, head of the Jenin camp services committee.
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The operation, which Israel says is aimed at thwarting Iranian-backed militant groups in the West Bank, has since been extended to other camps, notably the Tulkarm refugee camp and the nearby Nur Shams camp, both of which have also been devastated. The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups. They have been raided repeatedly by the Israeli military but the current operation, which began as a ceasefire was agreed in Gaza, has been on an unusually large scale. According to figures from the Palestinian Authority, around 17,000 people have now left Jenin refugee camp, leaving the site almost completely deserted, while in Nur Shams 6,000 people, or about two thirds of the total, have left, with another 10,000 leaving from Tulkarm camp.
“The ones who are left are trapped,” said Nihad Al-Shawish, head of the Nur Shams camp services committee. “The Civil Defense, the Red Crescent and the Palestinian security forces brought them some food yesterday but the army is still bulldozing and destroying the camp.” The Israeli raids have demolished dozens of houses and torn up large stretches of roadway as well as cutting off water and power, but the military has denied forcing residents to leave their homes.
“People obviously have the possibility to move or go where they want, if they will. But if they don’t, they’re allowed to stay,” Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters.
The operation began as Israel moved to banish the main UN Palestinian relief organization UNRWA from its headquarters in East Jerusalem and cut it off from any contact with Israeli officials.
The ban, which took effect at the end of January, has hit UNRWA’s work in the West Bank and Gaza, where it provides aid for millions of Palestinians in the refugee camps.
Israel has accused UNRWA of cooperating with Hamas and said some UNRWA workers even took part in the Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that set off the 15-month war in Gaza.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee West Bank refugee camps
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- The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups
JERUSALEM: Tens of thousands of Palestinians living in refugee camps in the occupied West Bank have left their homes as a weeks-long Israeli offensive has demolished houses and torn up vital infrastructure in the heavily built up townships, Palestinian authorities said.
Israeli forces began their operation in the refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Jan. 21, deploying hundreds of troops and bulldozers that demolished houses and dug up roads, driving almost all of the camp’s residents out.
“We don’t know what’s going on in the camp but there is continuous demolition and roads being dug up,” said Mohammed Al-Sabbagh, head of the Jenin camp services committee.

The operation, which Israel says is aimed at thwarting Iranian-backed militant groups in the West Bank, has since been extended to other camps, notably the Tulkarm refugee camp and the nearby Nur Shams camp, both of which have also been devastated. The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups. They have been raided repeatedly by the Israeli military but the current operation, which began as a ceasefire was agreed in Gaza, has been on an unusually large scale. According to figures from the Palestinian Authority, around 17,000 people have now left Jenin refugee camp, leaving the site almost completely deserted, while in Nur Shams 6,000 people, or about two thirds of the total, have left, with another 10,000 leaving from Tulkarm camp.
“The ones who are left are trapped,” said Nihad Al-Shawish, head of the Nur Shams camp services committee. “The Civil Defense, the Red Crescent and the Palestinian security forces brought them some food yesterday but the army is still bulldozing and destroying the camp.” The Israeli raids have demolished dozens of houses and torn up large stretches of roadway as well as cutting off water and power, but the military has denied forcing residents to leave their homes.
“People obviously have the possibility to move or go where they want, if they will. But if they don’t, they’re allowed to stay,” Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters.
The operation began as Israel moved to banish the main UN Palestinian relief organization UNRWA from its headquarters in East Jerusalem and cut it off from any contact with Israeli officials.
The ban, which took effect at the end of January, has hit UNRWA’s work in the West Bank and Gaza, where it provides aid for millions of Palestinians in the refugee camps.
Israel has accused UNRWA of cooperating with Hamas and said some UNRWA workers even took part in the Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that set off the 15-month war in Gaza.
More than one million Syrians return to their homes: UN
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- “Since the fall of the regime in Syria we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
GENEVA: More than one million people have returned to their homes in Syria after the overthrow of Bashar Assad, including 280,000 refugees who came back from abroad, the UN said on Tuesday.
Assad was toppled in December in a rebel offensive, putting an end to his family’s decades-long grip on power in the Middle Eastern country and bookmarking a civil war that broke out in 2011, with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions from their homes.
The Islamist-led rebels whose offensive ousted Assad have sought to assure the international community that they have broken with their past and will respect the rights of minorities.
“Since the fall of the regime in Syria we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote on the X social media platform.
“Early recovery efforts must be bolder and faster, though, otherwise people will leave again: this is now urgent!” he said.
At a meeting in Paris in mid-February, some 20 countries, including Arab nations, Turkiye, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan agreed at the close of a conference in Paris to “work together to ensure the success of the transition in a process led by Syria.”
The meeting’s final statement also pledged support for Syria’s new authorities in the fight against “all forms of terrorism and extremism.”
Algiers slams French minister’s visit to W. Sahara
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- France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining its ties with Morocco
ALGIERS: Algeria on Tuesday denounced a visit by French Culture Minister Rachida Dati to Western Sahara, after Paris recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory, as “objectionable on multiple levels.”
The vast desert territory is a former Spanish colony largely controlled by Morocco but claimed for decades by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.
Dati, who described her visit as “historic,” launched with Moroccan Culture Minister Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid a French cultural mission in the territory’s main city, Laayoune.
An Algerian foreign ministry statement posted on social media Tuesday said the visit “reflects blatant disregard for international legality by a permanent member of the UN Security Council.”
“This visit reinforces Morocco’s fait accompli in Western Sahara, a territory where the decolonization process remains incomplete and the right to self-determination unfulfilled,” it said.
Dati’s trip, a first for a French official, “reflects the detestable image of a former colonial power in solidarity with a new one,” the statement added.
The United Nations considers Western Sahara to be a “non-self-governing territory” and has had a peacekeeping mission there since 1991, whose stated aim is to organize a referendum on the territory’s future.
But Rabat has repeatedly rejected any vote in which independence is an option, instead proposing autonomy under Morocco.
France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining its ties with Morocco.
But in July, French President Emmanuel Macron said Rabat’s autonomy plan was the “only basis” to resolve the Western Sahara dispute.
Algeria has backed the separatist Polisario Front and cut diplomatic relations with Rabat in 2021 — the year after Morocco normalized ties with Israel under a deal that awarded it US recognition of its annexation of the Western Sahara.
In October, the UN Security Council called for parties to “resume negotiations” to reach a “lasting and mutually acceptable solution” to the Western Sahara dispute.
In November 2020, the Polisario Front said it was ending a 29-year ceasefire with Morocco after Moroccan troops were deployed to the far south of the territory to remove independence supporters blocking the only road to Mauritania.
The Polisario Front claims the route is illegal, arguing that it did not exist when the ceasefire was established in 1991.