The president is predicted to win 5 extra years within the vote with no surprises anticipated.
Voting has closed in Algeria’s presidential election in a ballot the place the incumbent Abdelmadjid Tebboune is tipped to remain on for a second time period.
Voting started at 8am (07:00 GMT) and was scheduled be closed at 7pm (18:00 GMT) earlier than it was prolonged for an hour.
Tebboune, 78, is closely favoured to see off reasonable conservative Abdelaali Hassani Cherif and socialist candidate Youcef Aouchiche.
Greater than 24 million Algerians had been registered to vote within the elections.
“At present we begin constructing our future by voting for our mission and leaving boycott and despair behind us,” Aouchiche mentioned on nationwide tv after casting his vote.
Hassani Cherif instructed journalists he hoped “the Algerian folks will vote in pressure” as a result of “a excessive turnout provides larger credibility to those elections”.
Algerians overseas have been in a position to vote since Monday, and the nation’s election authority (ANIE) put that turnout at 14.5 %. The transfer to increase voting on Saturday got here shortly earlier than ANIE introduced a turnout of 26 % nationwide as of 5pm (16:00 GMT).
Low summer time marketing campaign interval
Preliminary outcomes might come as early as Saturday night time, with ANIE saying the official outcomes on Sunday on the newest.
Marketing campaign rallies have struggled to generate enthusiasm within the nation of 45 million, partly due to the summer time warmth.
With younger folks greater than half the inhabitants, all three candidates have courted their votes with guarantees to enhance dwelling requirements and cut back dependence on hydrocarbons.
Tebboune has touted financial successes throughout his first time period, together with extra jobs and better wages in Africa’s largest exporter of pure fuel.
His challengers have vowed to grant the folks extra freedoms.
Aouchiche says he’s dedicated “to launch prisoners of conscience via an amnesty and to overview unjust legal guidelines”, together with on media and “terrorism”.
Hassani Cherif has advocated “freedoms which were diminished to nothing in recent times”.
Opposition in Algeria ‘non-existent’
Youcef Bouandel of Qatar College instructed Al Jazeera that the political opposition in Algeria is sort of “non-existent”.
“All people can be stunned if Abdelmadjid Tebboune doesn’t win tonight – within the first spherical of the presidential election,” he mentioned.
Boubaker Sellami, an economist, mentioned that whereas “traders had no confidence to spend money on Algeria beforehand, that’s starting to vary as our legal guidelines are amended and our picture modifications”.
“The rebound of our economic system depends upon severing the connection between corruption, cash and politics. And that’s what’s given us a launchpad in direction of a brand new financial outlook.”
