An Election Campaign Marked by All Kinds of Slips
Dull and completely unattractive, the election campaign for the upcoming September 7th presidential election has been marked by verbal slips by the candidates, especially the incumbent president who has multiplied blunders, and by the intensification of repression against any dissenting voices.
By Hichem ABOUD
Without a worthy political program, the three candidates for the highest office have only multiplied the most extravagant promises, particularly concerning salary increases, student scholarships, family allowances, especially for housewives, and the tourist allowance, the lowest in the world. Promises that smell of corruption. “They seem to want to bribe citizens with enticing promises that will never be kept,” commented a citizen. In this frantic race of false promises, President-candidate Tebboune, dons his former housing minister suit to promise the construction of 450,000 homes. As if this were within the prerogatives of the president of the republic.
Moreover, the two speeches delivered by Tebboune, one in the eastern capital, Constantine, and the other in Oran, the western capital, were more than enough for him to win the prize for absurdity. Calling on Egypt to open its borders with Gaza so that “the Algerian army can demonstrate what it knows how to do,” Abdelmadjid Tebboune quickly backtracked a few seconds later to say that the Algerian army was ready to build three hospitals in 20 days. But this did not fail to provoke global hilarity. Just as it did not prevent the White House from sending its ambassador to Algiers, Mrs. Elizabeth Moore Aubin, in the early hours of Thursday, August 22nd, to ask the Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs for explanations on the martial tone of Tebboune’s speech in Constantine.
Ahmed Attaf, the head of Algerian diplomacy, chastised by the American ambassador, was forced to issue a timid statement in which he elaborated on “the pacifism of the Algerian regime.” A week later, in Oran, Tebboune forgets Gaza and sees things on a larger scale by talking about Palestine without offending Israel and its allies. But he resumes his belligerent tone against Morocco by insisting that the Sahrawi state under Polisario’s leadership will come into being whether the world likes it or not, as if he had the influence to impose his will on the world. Tebboune was speaking without conviction. It was visible. He was trying to puff out his chest just to show off a strength he lacks. He resorts to empty rhetoric to the point where he causes another wave of global laughter.
In less than a minute, the president-candidate says one thing and its opposite. Discussing the country’s economic health under his governance, Tebboune declares, “The World Bank and the IMF are here to attest that our GDP will reach 400 billion dollars in 2027, allowing us to resemble the southern European countries. We are the second-largest economy in Africa. In 2019 (before he came to power), the Algerian citizen had lost all hope. Our economy was at the bottom of the rankings. Today, Algeria is the third-largest economy in the world.” No comment. We prefer to attribute this inconsistency to sheer delirium, simply put.
However, the wave of arrests and kidnappings has nothing to do with delirium. It is a repression that clearly shows that the Algerian regime, although going it alone in this unprecedented presidential election, does not tolerate the slightest contradiction or the smallest opposition to its discourse.
Several arrests have been made across the country. Under the charge of “misuse of public funds,” citizens caught in the act of tearing up candidate portraits are being brought before courts and sentenced to two years in prison. Yet, nothing in the penal code indicates such a sentence for such an act. By targeting ordinary citizens who attract no media attention, the regime extends its repression to prominent figures on the political scene.
On the evening of Monday, August 26th, police officers from the DGSN raided the home of Sheikh Ali Benhadj. After searching the apartment, which has been under police surveillance for over a dozen years, they took the former spokesperson of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), dissolved more than two decades ago, to an unknown location. The next day, his family learned that he was at the Bab-Ezzouar police station, in the suburbs of Algiers. His son, who went to bring him his medication, was detained. Ali Benhadj was later transferred to the cybercrime unit. He will have to answer for the statements made on a YouTube channel he has been running for some time.
Another political figure affected by the repressive machine is Fethi Gherras, the coordinator of the Movement for Social Democracy (MDS). “On August 27, 2024, at 10 a.m., he was taken by plainclothes police officers for ‘an interrogation,’ as they told his wife. In the afternoon, she, along with another MDS activist, Ouahid Benhala, was also detained at the police station. At the time of writing, the three activists remain in police custody.
A week earlier, Karim Tabbou, president of the UDS, was unexpectedly brought before the investigating judge of the Koléa court on August 19, 2024, who informed him of new restrictions regarding his judicial supervision, even though he had gone that same day, as he does every Monday, to the DGSI barracks in Dely Brahim to sign the judicial supervision register.
Activist Karim Tabbou refused before the investigating judge of the Koléa court, Tipaza province, to sign the tougher judicial supervision obligations imposed on him. The new conditions prohibit him from “publishing political comments on social media, participating in political debates, whether on television or elsewhere, engaging in political activities, holding meetings, and leaving the perimeter of his residential district.” Several arrests have taken place across the country. We will limit ourselves to those made in the last 24 hours. Activist Djamil Khalid Belarbi was summoned by the police in Tiaret (in the west of the country). In the east, the correctional chamber of the Constantine court today, August 27, 2024, confirmed the sentence handed down in the first instance against the prisoner of conscience, Djaber Bechiri, who was sentenced to 2 years in prison.
In Kabylia, the Ain El Hamam (Michelet) court, Tizi Ouzou province, presented the activist Tahar Temim today, August 27, 2024, before the prosecutor of the court and then before the investigating judge of the same court, who ordered his placement under judicial supervision pending the continuation of the investigation. He is being prosecuted for “glorification of terrorism” and for “publishing false information likely to undermine national security and public order.” It should be noted that he was arrested on August 21 and held for six days at the central police station in Tizi-Ouzou.
Yacine Mekireche has been arbitrarily detained since August 8, 2024, at El Harrach prison due to his opinions. On August 6, he was arrested at his family home and placed in police custody at the Bab El Oued police station in Algiers. He is in pre-trial detention on charges of “insulting a public authority,” “inciting an unarmed gathering,” and “spreading hateful speech” based on Facebook posts. Like millions of Algerians, Yacine aspires to live in an Algeria where dignity, freedom, and justice are not empty slogans. This repression and these human rights violations are superbly ignored by Algerian media, whether public or private, print or electronic, spoken or televised. There is no need to inquire about press freedom or the freedom to inform.
