Rabat – Marred by discontent on the streets, Algeria’s first parliamentary elections since former President Bouteflika’s deposition have seen a particularly low turn-out.
Latest figures available, taken after the polls concluded, suggest that only 30% of the country’s 24 million viable voters participated in the parliamentary elections on Saturday, June 12.
“Voter turnout in the polls reached 30.2%,” confirmed Mohamed Chorfi, the chairman of the National Independent Election Authority, speaking to state television.
Anti-government activists forming the core of Algeria’s Hirak movement boycotted the election and used the occasion to demand for tangible constitutional and structural reforms to end the rule of a self-absorbed and corrupt politico-military establishment. Pictures and videos of protesters storming the streets and chanting slogans, scattering ballots outside and throwing them in bins have taken Maghrebi social media by storm.
The low election turnout says a lot about the legitimacy of the results, suggesting that less than a fifth of the Algerian voting population has any real investment, and by extension trust, in the country’s institutions and ruling class.
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“I have already said that the voter turnout does not interest me,” stressed Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, speaking to the press after casting his ballot. But the fact remains that the turnout says more about the relationship between the government and its people, than any official spokesperson or politician can or would admit.
Voter turnout in Algeria has been gradually shrinking through the years. In 2012, parliamentary elections voter turnout hit 42.9%, while in the 2017 elections it had diminished to 37.09%. Now with the latest figures indicating a 30.2% turnout on Saturday, the Algerian population’s disillusionment with the post-Bouteflika era’s “reforms” is becoming increasingly evident.
“What is important is the legitimacy that will result from the vote and the legitimacy of the parliamentarians who will represent the parliamentary authority,” President Tebboune said, dismissing those who have raised concerns over the growing divide between the public and the government.
As for the Hirak, considering the streets were quiet on Friday, some observers have been worried about the protest movement losing steam. “There is nothing left of the Hirak. People are even afraid to walk in the streets at the customary time of demonstrations,” a 60-year-old Algerian told Liberte Algeria.
But the fears appear to be unfounded, as discontent selled up once more the next day during the elections process. Rather than dying down, it has diverted its efforts into different ways of protesting against the governing class.
