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Algerians Elect Tebboune President with 40% Turnout, Protests Resume for a Total Regime Change

December 17, 2019

 

Algerian President, Abdelmadjid-Tebboune, December 2019

Algerian protesters came out in Al-Buwayra, after the presidential election, Tuesday, December 17, 2019	Algerian protesters came out in Al-Buwayra, after the presidential election, Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Algerian protesters came out for the first time after the presidential election, to express support for those who were injured during the protests and demanding total regime change. El-Khabar, December 17, 2019 أول مسيرة للثلاثاء بعد الرئاسيات أخبار الوطن 17 ديسمبر 2019 * خرج طلبة جامعة مولود معمري بتيزي وزو، اليوم، مدعمين بالمواطنين في مسيرة إحتجاجية  سلمية عبروا من خلالها عن تضامنهم مع سكان ولايات الغرب الجزائري بعدما تعرضت اليه مسيرات يوم الجمعة في عدة ولايات غربية منددة بالنظام ورفضهم لحوار تريده السلطة على مقاسها. * مسيرة شعبية سلمية بمدينة بجاية اليوم لطلبة وأساتذة وعمال جامعة بجاية وعمال وتنظيمات ونقابات مستقلة للمطالبة بتغيير جذري للنظام. * نظم،اليوم، عدد من طلبة جامعة آكلي محند أولحاج بالبويرة مسيرة حاشدة. وشارك الطلبة مسيرتهم المواطنون القادمون من مختلف البلديات الشرقية لمقر الولاية يتقدمهم نشطاء جمعويون وممثلو بعض الأحزاب. المسيرة السلمية التي جابت أغلب الشوارع الرئيسية أبدى فيها المتظاهرون تضامنا مع المصابين خلال المناوشات التي حدثت يوم الاقتراع مع مختلف الأسلاك الأمنية كما دعوا إلى عدم التوقف والمزيد من النضال لتحقيق المبتغى. وندد عدد من الحاضرين بما وصفوه بـ "مظاهر العنف والترهيب والتخويف"، الذي قالوا بأنه يمارس على النشطاء.   * شرع المتظاهرون في التجمع بساحة الشهداء للمشاركة في المسيرة الـ 43 ليوم الثلاثاء وهي الأولى بعد الرئاسيات. https://www.elkhabar.com/press/article/161104/أول-مسيرة-للثلاثاء-بعد-الرئاسيات/

Algerian Constitutional Council announces final presidential election results

APS.DZ, Monday, 16 December 2019 19:18   Read : 79 time(s)

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ALGIERS-

The chairman of the Constitutional Council, Kamel Fennich, announced Monday the final results of the presidential election of December 12th. 

Abdelmadjid Tebboune elected president of the Republic with 58.13%

Abdelmadjid Tebboune has been elected president of the Republic with 58.13%, the president of the Constitutional Council, Kamel Fenniche, said Monday in Algiers.

Tebboune is followed by Abdelkader Bengrina, with a turnout rate of 17.37%, Ali Benflis (10.55 %), Azzedine Mihoubi (7.28%) and Abdelaziz Belaid (6.67%), Fenniche said while presenting the final results of last Thursday's presidential election.

http://www.aps.dz/en/algeria/32311-constitutional-council-announces-final-presidential-election-results

Protesters reject results of Algeria’s presidential election where 6 out of 10 abstained

FRANCE 24 with AFP, December 15, 2019

 by yalibnan

Abdelmadjid Tebboune, a former Algerian prime minister who served under deposed leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika, was elected president of the protest-wracked country after a vote marred by unrest and low turnout, results showed Friday.

Tebboune, 74, took 58.15 percent of the vote, trouncing his four fellow contenders without the need for a second-round runoff, electoral commission chairman Mohamed Charfi announced. Like him, they all served under the two-decade rule of Bouteflika, 82, who resigned in the face of mass demonstrations in April. The deeply unpopular election had been championed by Algeria’s powerful army as a way of restoring stability after almost 10 months of street protests.

But on polling day Thursday, protesters defied a heavy police presence to hold a mass rally in the heart of the capital Algiers and smaller demonstrations in provincial cities. All five candidates – who included another former prime minister, Ali Benflis, 75, and an ex-minister, Azzedine Mihoubi – were widely rejected by protesters as “children of the regime”. Voter anger On Thursday, a record six in 10 Algerians abstained, Charfi said, the highest rate for a multi-party election since independence from France in 1962.

Tens of thousands rallied in central Algiers, where police with water cannon and helicopters tried to disperse protesters. “The people want independence,” demonstrators chanted after breaking through a police cordon and filling the streets outside the Central Post Office, their rallying point through more than 40 weeks of protest.

AFP reporters saw a group storming a polling station in the capital, suspending voting there for about half an hour before police pushed them out again.

After dark, witnesses reported ongoing scuffles between police and protesters in the Belouizdad neighbourhood close to the city centre.

In the mountain region of Kabylie, home to much of the country’s Berber minority and historically opposed to the central government, protesters ransacked polling stations and clashed with police, residents said.

In the city of Bejaia, two polling stations were attacked. In Tizi Ouzou, security forces fired teargas to disperse a crowd who had surrounded a government building, triggering a standoff into the night in which several people were wounded.

‘I fought for the right to vote’

In central Algiers, young protesters slammed those casting their ballots as “traitors of the nation”.

That earned a sharp rebuke from one man in his 80s: “I fought for the right to vote, so I’m voting for my country.”

Other voters said they had turned out because after nearly a year of turmoil it was time for a return to stability.

“I am voting because I am afraid that the country will get mired in the crisis,” said Karim, a 28-year-old civil servant.

Sid Ali, a 48-year-old merchant in Algiers, said: “I support the Hirak (protest) movement but it needs to end. I lost 70 percent of my turnover and many traders are in my situation.”

Candidate of the ‘system’

Tebboune faces a difficult task to be accepted by the electorate in the North African country, where many citizens see the government as inept, corrupt and unable to manage the flagging economy.

He served in Bouteflika’s government from 1999 to 2002 as communications and then housing minister. He returned as housing minister from 2012 to 2017 when he was briefly appointed prime minister.

But he was sacked by Bouteflika after just three months for criticising some of the president’s inner circle, many of whom are now in jail on corruption charges.

Since the start of the campaign, Tebboune has sought to distance himself from his years of service under Bouteflika.

The “Hirak” street movement kicked off when Bouteflika announced in February that he would seek a fifth term in office.

Protesters have stayed on the streets ever since, demanding the total dismantling of the system that has ruled Algeria since independence.

https://yalibnan.com/2019/12/15/protesters-reject-results-of-algerias-presidential-election-where-6-out-of-10-abstained/  

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