The campaign of Abdelaali Hassani, a presidential candidate in Algeria, has accused election officials of manipulating the results of Saturday’s vote, in which incumbent President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is widely expected to win a second term.
Hassani, a 57-year-old moderate Islamist, is one of two candidates running against Tebboune, who is considered the frontrunner in the election. However, Hassani’s campaign has raised concerns about the fairness of the electoral process, citing issues such as the failure to provide vote-sorting records to candidates’ representatives and reports of group voting by proxy.
As Tebboune aims for re-election, one of his key challenges is to boost voter turnout, especially after the 2019 election saw a historic abstention rate of over 60%. Over 24 million Algerians were registered to vote in this year’s election, but the electoral authority ANIE has not yet released an official turnout rate. Instead, on Sunday, they reported a provisional average turnout of 48%, without specifying the total number of voters.
Hassani’s campaign called the move “strange” and accused polling station officials of facing pressure to inflate the results. The campaign did not provide additional details on the alleged vote-rigging. ANIE is expected to announce the official turnout rate and election results later on Sunday.