The campaign for the legislative elections of June 12 in Algeria opened Thursday in a climate of repression against the popular protest movement of Hirak.
The campaign for the legislative elections of June 12 in Algeria opened Thursday, May 20 as the popular protest movement of Hirak continues to suffer repression by the authorities, three months after the dissolution of Parliament by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
These early elections, which should have taken place in 2022, appear as an attempt by the regime to regain control of the Hirak’s return to the streets since the end of February.
The electoral campaign, which will end on June 9, begins three months after the dissolution of the National People’s Congress (APN) by the president.
In many areas of Algiers, the majority of election signs were still empty Thursday morning, according to an AFP journalist.
“All the candidates promise change while the majority of them are from the old system. This election will only worsen the political crisis,” said an economics professor from the University of Algiers, interviewed by AFP and who did not wish to give his name.
A new electoral law
Nearly 1,500 lists, more than half of which appear to be independent, are in the running, according to the National Independent Election Authority (ANIE).
About 1,200 other lists were rejected under a new electoral law stipulating that the candidate should not be “known in a way known for having had connections with dubious money and the business circles”.
This law fixes in particular the rules of financing and control of the electoral campaigns. Thus, it is forbidden for any candidate to receive donations in cash or in-kind from a foreign state or from a natural or legal person of foreign nationality.
Multiplication of arrests
Since the announcement of the election, the regime’s electoral “road map” has been rejected by the main secular parties as well as by the Hirak demonstrators who march across the country every week.
For their part, the authorities have toughened the repression in recent weeks in order to break the protest movement before the election deadline, increasing the number of arrests and legal proceedings against opponents, hirakists, and journalists.
On Friday, May 14, the police forcefully dispersed the weekly Hirak march in Algiers and carried out hundreds of arrests throughout the country.
Born in February 2019 from the massive rejection of the fifth term of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who resigned in April of the same year, the Hirak calls for a radical change in the political “system” in place since the country’s independence in 1962.
The last legislative elections in 2017 were won by the National Liberation Front (FLN) and the National Democratic Rally (RND) within a Presidential Alliance that supported Abdelaziz Bouteflika. These two parties are now largely discredited.
