ALGIERS, Algeria — Voters in Algeria cast ballots Thursday in parliamentary elections overshadowed by cost-of-living concerns and bans on candidates challenging the government.
Nearly 25 million voters across Africa’s largest country by territory are choosing among 1,235 candidates for 407 seats with five-year terms in the lower house of Parliament.
Turnout is a big concern after voters largely snubbed campaign events, and the government declared Thursday a paid national holiday to encourage people to vote. The turnout at 10 a.m., two hours after polls opened, was just 3% nationwide.
Rather than electoral politics, many people seem more concerned with everyday problems such as purchasing power and the decline of public services against a backdrop of shrinking political, media and union freedoms.
Many soccer-obsessed Algerians also are focused on the World Cup, where their national team faces Switzerland in a knockout match early Friday.
Pro-government parties hope to hold their majority
The outgoing pro-government majority holds some 300 seats, while the Islamist MSP party is the second largest political force with 64 seats.
Some MSP candidates were among 269 candidates barred from running, which notably included former leaders and activists of the Hirak pro-democracy movement that helped push out long-serving autocratic President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in 2019. His successor, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, was reelected to a second term in 2024, and his government has increasingly squeezed democratic freedoms.
The electoral authority said the rejected candidates were banned because of “links to illicit financial networks” and “suspicious political activities.’’
The president sought to assure the public that everyone’s vote would be “scrupulously respected” and that the composition of the future People’s Assembly would reflect the choices made by all Algerians.
“The political parties involved in the electoral competition no longer express doubts, as they did in the past, about the regularity and transparency of the elections,″ Tebboune said Thursday after voting in the seaside town of Bouchaoui, a summer residence of the Algerian elite.
Special voting measures in the Sahara and the capital
Security measures were put in place Wednesday around polling stations in the capital Algiers.
In southern Algeria and Sahara Desert regions, voting was brought forward by 48 hours to allow the nomadic population to cast ballots in boxes transported in off-road vehicles belonging to the administration and escorted by police in Land Rovers.
In the Algerian diaspora, which numbers more than 850,000 registered voters, particularly in France, voting took place Saturday and Sunday at consular offices.
The government also moved up dates of end-of-year school exams to free classrooms for voting stations and teachers, who are usually called upon to staff polling stations in exchange for a daily allowance.
Faced with largely empty campaign venues, parties and independent candidates opted for grassroots meetings in the streets, markets and popular cafes with citizens. In a widely viewed video broadcast last week, the head of a political party is seen trying – and failing – to convince a young man to vote.
Parties clash over pensions and political prisoners
Parties campaigned anyway. The presidential majority, led by the long-serving FLN party, urged broad turnout to strengthen Algeria domestically in the face of geopolitical challenges.
The Trotskyist opposition Workers’ Party campaigned for increased pensions and wages and against a mining sector reform favoring foreign investors.
The head of the Socialist Forces Front, the main party of the democratic movement, called for the release of political prisoners and freer media and telling voters that boycotting the elections would only serve the government.
Banned candidates say they’re unfairly targeted
The electoral authority based the candidate bans on a law against corrupt practices that in previous years saw some parliamentary seats bought with money linked to drug trafficking, corruption and tax evasion. However, banned candidates say the law was applied to them unfairly or for political reasons.
“I myself voted for this virtuous law, which aims to clean up the political scene, but it is clear that it has been diverted from its objective and used as a weapon of mass exclusion’’ by the electoral authority, said Abdelahab Yagoubi, an Islamist legislator representing the Algerian diaspora abroad who was banned from running for reelection.
Said Oulhadj, 62, a primary school principal in a mountain village, wanted to run with the independent Thagmats (Fraternity) party but was barred.
“I have nothing to do with dirty money,’’ he told The Associated Press. ‘’The electoral authority has damaged my reputation and my honor. How will my students, their parents and my colleagues look at me?’’
The president of the electoral authority, Karim Khelfane, defended his institution, and noted that legislators prevented from serving a second term were among those who voted for the anti-corruption law.
