In Algeria, Abdelmadjib Tebboune’s opponents are waging a hopeless campaign – Technologist

On August 31, the 250-seat conference room of the library in the town of Boumerdès, 45 kilometers east of Algiers, was almost full. Quite a feat on a Saturday in summer, with the humidity turning the thermometer’s 29 degrees Celsius into 37 degrees Celsius in this coastal town with long beaches. All had come to hear Youcef Aouchiche, the candidate of the Socialist Forces Front (SFF), present his program for the September 7 presidential election, in which he is running against the outgoing president Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

Once their cameras were aimed at the stage, half a dozen cameramen collapsed in their seats, their noses in their phones. Aouchiche arrived discreetly, without drawing immediate applause. In front of a dozen national media microphones, he energetically laid out his economic and social program. Because classical Arabic is not his native language, he sometimes paused in the middle of a sentence to glance over his text, preferring Darija, the Algerian dialect, or slipping in a few words in Kabyle and French.

As for Tebboune, he is up against the Islamists of the Movement of Society for Peace (MSP) and the Socialists of the SFF, two parties with a solid national base. On paper, he should face greater adversity than in 2019 when he was elected against Abdelkader Bengrina (17.3%), the president of the Islamist party El Binaa – who has since rallied to the outgoing president. Among observers of the Algerian political scene, many wonder why the SFF, which always used to refuse to compromise itself in “preordained” elections, has agreed to take part – and thus endorse in a way – in a presidential election the Head of State is very likely to win.

Resisting voter ‘resignation’

According to Aouchiche, who was questioned on the subject as soon as his party’s participation was announced on May 25, this decision had less to do with democratic improvement than with the risk that a boycott would pose for Algeria. “Today, the Algerians have resigned from political action,” he explained. “We’ve gone from defiance to resignation, which is dangerous. Despite the questionable conditions in which it will take place, the next election […] offers an opportunity to reconquer democratic political spaces.” In his view, the SFF is in a position to bring about “the emergence of a powerful patriotic, progressive and democratic political pole,” capable of “rehabilitating freedom of expression and opinion.” Although the campaign was relatively consensual, Aouchiche regularly called for the release of prisoners of conscience, whose existence President Tebboune denies.

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