Algeria’s incumbent president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, has got himself a second term. He won the 7 September election with a staggering 94.65 per cent of the vote, a figure that only suggests an empty ritual rather than a genuine election. But the truly telling fact was that most people stayed at home, seeing no point in going along with the charade.

The election was originally scheduled for December, but Tebboune surprised everyone by moving it to September. He said this was so it could coincide with the start of the school year, which would supposedly boost turnout. The move was controversial: after it was announced, the phrase ‘Ma fhemna walou’ – ‘we didn’t understand anything’ – trended on social media. Due to the intense summer heat, few were willing to attend campaign events.

Potential candidates had little time to gather the required 50,000 signatures from voters in different provinces. Electoral authorities disqualified 13 candidates, leaving Tebboune facing just two token opponents. The ground had also been thoroughly prepared by a long campaign of repression against civil society, independent media and the political opposition.

A revolution thwarted

The events that brought Tebboune to power now seem like a distant memory. In 2019, a youth-led protest movement, Hirak, rose up to resist the then president’s attempt to secure a fifth term. At the height of the protests, three million people mobilised, the biggest demonstrations since independence in 1962. They got the first part of what they wanted: President Abdelaziz Bouteflika stepped aside.

Hopes for further change were high. But reform momentum was halted by the political elite and powerful military establishment. The military-backed elite commonly referred to as ‘le pouvoir’ – the power – wasn’t about to give up its power.

Having sacrificed Bouteflika, Algeria’s rulers packed the December 2019 presidential election with insider candidates. The winner was Tebboune, a former prime minister under Bouteflika. Weekly Hirak protests had continued, with many calling for a boycott; the official turnout of under 40 per cent – a record low for a presidential election – and a large number of spoiled ballots indicated a high level of discontent.

Tebboune pressed ahead as if he’d been handed a strong mandate. In 2020 he pushed through constitutional changes that expanded presidential powers, placing him in charge of all key institutions. A referendum to rubber-stamp his changes brought another extremely low turnout, of only around 23 per cent.

Although Tebboune initially paid lip service to Hirak, the movement continued to face repression, and this intensified in 2021. Hirak resurged when Tebboune called early legislative elections for June 2021. Activists resumed the street protests they’d put on hold during the pandemic, when they shifted to providing vital medical and food supplies. The boycott call was heard once again, and only about 23 per cent voted.

Now the 2024 election is the fourth vote in a row where most people have refused to legitimise the regime at the ballot box. Tebboune knew he was going to win, but this time he wanted a higher turnout to offer some credibility. That didn’t happen. On election day, officials reported that 5.6 million had voted, out of an electorate of roughly 24 million – pointing to a turnout of around 23 per cent. Confusingly, however, officials had earlier said turnout stood at the still low figure of 48 per cent. This discrepancy led Tebboune to join the other two candidates in criticising the electoral authority; it had failed to deliver the uncontroversial election the regime surely wanted.

Growing repression

When protests resumed in 2021, the authorities responded with security force violence and increasing arrests. Many of those arrested for protesting were charged with terrorism; in June 2021, a presidential decree extended the penal code’s definition of terrorism to include any act aimed at changing the political regime through ‘non-constitutional means’, allowing the government to classify protest demands as terrorism. This came on top of an extensive array of laws that enable the authorities to criminalise dissent, including online.

A year after the June 2021 election, at least 266 Hirak activists and protesters were reported to be in jail. Many remain there. The authorities now prevent protests by requiring advance notification, which they use to deny permission.

The authorities have shut down key organisations involved in protests, including civil society groups and political parties. The Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, the country’s oldest human rights organisation, was dissolved in 2022, after it participated in Algeria’s United Nations Human Rights Council review. The move appeared to come in retaliation for its work in exposing human rights violations at the global level. The state also severely limits civil society’s access to international funding.

Several independent media outlets have also been forced to close, or have shut down to protect themselves, and journalists have been criminalised. The most notorious case is that of Ishane El Khadi, founder of the online station Radio M and news site Maghreb Emergent, who’s been in jail since December 2022. He was convicted on charges of receiving foreign funds for ‘political propaganda’ and receiving funds that could ‘harm the security of the state’. When he appealed against his sentence, the court increased it from five to seven years, with two suspended. The court has also ordered the dissolution of his media company. An even worse fate almost befell exiled journalist and opposition activist Abdou Semmer, who last year survived an assassination attempt.

There was no let-up ahead of the election. In July, 11 prominent opposition figures wrote an open letter condemning the lack of genuine democracy, saying the denial of civic freedoms made it impossible to hold a legitimate vote.

The state kept proving their point. In August, it arrested around 60 activists, mostly from the Rally for Culture and Democracy party. That same month, a judge ordered that Fethi Ghares, national coordinator of the Democratic Social Movement party, and his wife, Messouda Cheballah, be placed under judicial supervision on charges of insulting the president and spreading disinformation and hate speech. Two journalists were also arrested in August for publishing a video showing women complaining about their treatment by government representatives at an official event. Just ahead of the elected, the government announced it had arrested seven people, including four who it claimed were Moroccan spies.

International pressure needed

Algeria is Africa’s largest country in terms of land area, but apart from its long-running dispute with neighbouring Morocco over the contested territory of Western Sahara, it rarely makes international waves.

That wasn’t always the case. In the 1990s, Algeria underwent a brutal civil war caused by jihadist insurgency. The military ultimately triumphed, cementing itself into the position it enjoys today. Present-day impacts are also felt in the potency of anti-terrorism laws and the characterisation of dissidents as terrorists, extremists or agents of foreign influence. But since then, Algeria has cultivated a low profile, building up an image as a stable country. Tebboune has positioned himself as a necessary corrective to restore calm and get the country back on track.

It helps that Algeria is a major oil and gas producer. Tebboune has been lucky here. Much of Algeria’s gas exports go to major European countries, and this has increased as they’ve tried to diversify away from their long-running dependence on Russia. For example, in 2022, Italy signed a series of deals to receive Algerian gas so it could reduce its Russian imports. In this context, European states aren’t going to rock the boat. They’re willing to take Algeria’s democratic facade at face value.

Gas revenues are fuelling economic growth and paying for the government’s social programmes, although inflation has increased and there’s still high unemployment, particularly among young people, which is driving many to leave. Any end to the gas boom will mean an economic downturn and a likely resumption of protests. But for now, the Algerian government is getting away with putting on a carefully staged show of pseudo-democracy and stability while repressing demands for genuine democracy and human rights.

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