Algerian presidential candidates appeal election results

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UPDATES: Aouchiche files appeal

The Algerian presidential candidates who lost to incumbent Abdelmadjid Tebboune in the Algerian presidential election filed an appeal with the Constitutional Court on Tuesday, challenging the provisional result of the vote.

Abdelaali Hassani, chairman of the moderate Islamist Movement of Society for Peace party, was the first to submit his appeal.

He had declared the day before that he had “lost the battle, but not the war” and described the election result as “fraud”.

Youcef Aouchiche, leader of the centre-left Front of Socialist Forces (FFS) party, later followed suit and accused the electoral authority ANIE of “falsifying” the September 7 election results.

On Sunday, ANIE announced that Tebboune had received “94.65 percent of the vote,” while Hassani received 3.17 percent and Aouchiche 2.16 percent.

Tebboune, 78, had been widely expected to win the election handily, and instead he was keen to ensure a high turnout.

He was elected in December 2019 amid mass protests by the Hirak movement for democracy with 58 percent of the vote, despite a record abstention rate of over 60 percent.

More than 24 million Algerians were registered for this election, but ANIE did not provide any information on the number of voters.

Instead, a “provisional average turnout” of 48 percent was reported, which Hassani and Aouchiche denied.

Hassani had previously denounced what he described as “false figures” on voter turnout and called on the authorities to put an end to this “masking”.

Aouchiche also said on Tuesday that the results “do not reflect the electoral outcome of Algerians.”

The Constitutional Court is expected to announce the final results within ten days of receiving the vote count from Algeria’s 58 provinces.

On Monday it was said that not all of them had been received yet.

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