Algeria: The Historic Heist of the Presidential Election of September 7
Today, Saturday, September 14, at 1 p.m. (Algerian time), Omar Belhadj, President of the Constitutional Court, announced the official results of the presidential election held on September 7. The results were significantly different from those announced the day after the election. No less than 5,872,749 votes were “stolen” from the three candidates.
By Hichem ABOUD
Declared the winner of the presidential election with 94.65% of the vote, outgoing president Abdelmadjid Tebboune saw his vote percentage drop by 10%. He was eventually re-elected with 84.3%. However, this decrease was accompanied by an increase in the number of votes he obtained. These went from 5,329,253, as announced by the president of the Independent Election Authority (ANIE), Mohamed Charfi, to 7,976,291 votes. In other words, 2,647,038 votes were stolen from Abdelmadjid Tebboune by Mohamed Charfi’s authority. Frankly, it’s scandalous!
Stealing more than 2.5 million votes from the candidate-president, almost half of what he would have obtained from the polls, is simply outrageous.
Happy Consolation for the Defeated
Tebboune wasn’t the only victim of vote theft. His competitors were as well. Abdelaali Hassani Cherif, president of the MSP, obtained 940,642 votes, or 9.5% of the votes cast. Whereas the ANIE results had barely granted him 178,797 and a percentage of 3.17%. So, the theft was blatant. For him, the increase touched both the vote percentage and the number of votes.
The same is true for the third candidate in the race, FFS President Youcef Aouchiche. Credited with 122,146 votes representing 2.16%, the Constitutional Court rehabilitated him by accepting the appeal he had submitted alongside the other unfortunate defeated candidate Abdelaali Hassani Cherif. His number of votes rose to 580,495, recording an increase of more than threefold. This represents 6.14%.
These two unfortunate losers were also robbed by the ANIE, with 761,845 votes stolen from Hassani and 458,349 votes from Aouchiche, more than double what was announced by the ANIE on September 8.
However, the two unlucky candidates, who knew well before the race began that they were losers, rejoice at the Constitutional Court’s results. These results bring them a very happy consolation. Their participation rates of 9.5% and 6.14% allow them to be reimbursed for their campaign expenses. They wouldn’t have played and lost on all fronts. At least financially, they can say they played without losing a penny.
With these new figures, the total number of voters rose from 5,630,196 to 11,226,065, of which 1,764,637 were null ballots.
In total, 3,106,148 votes were stolen from the three candidates. It’s an enormous number. Where were these votes between September 8, when the results were announced by the ANIE, and the 14th of the same month, when the Constitutional Court declared the official results? In an age of computing and digitization, as President Tebboune spoke about at length throughout his first term, it is unacceptable to record such significant errors in the announcement of the results of the most important election in a nation’s life.
Participation Rate or the Complex of Unpopularity
For analysts who know how the Algerian regime’s gears work, there was no theft of votes from the candidates. Rather, the theft was from the voters. These 3,106,148 votes, along with the 1,764,637 null votes that suddenly appeared a week after the election, were added to reach the participation rate of 46.10%, close to 48.03%. “It’s a historic hold-up, a black mark in the history of the Algerian regime,” commented a connoisseur of Algerian power’s inner workings.
Nevertheless, the figure of 46.10% is difficult to accept, given that the participation rate at 5 p.m. on September 7 was 26.46%. In three hours, it is impossible, according to many observers and witnesses, to see nearly 4 million voters rush to the polls between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m.
In any case, the Algerian regime finds no reason to be ashamed of recognizing the diversion of more than 4 million votes, as long as the participation rate exceeds that of 39.8% in the 2019 election. This participation rate is the Gordian knot of any electoral contest organized by a regime rejected by the people. The boycott of the September 7 presidential election is further proof of the unpopularity of the ruling power.
