Algeria’s constitutional court confirmed President Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s decisive win in the recent election after rechecking the vote tallies, which he and his two rivals had previously questioned. The court reviewed local voting data to address allegations of irregularities made in two appeals.
Following corrections to counting errors, Tebboune’s vote share was adjusted, while his opponents gained several hundred thousand more votes than initially reported.
Despite this, the court declared Tebboune the official winner, and his government will soon schedule his second-term inauguration.
The court’s revised numbers showed Tebboune leading his Islamist challenger, Abdellali Hassan Cherif, by about 75 percentage points.
Tebboune secured 84.3% of the vote with 7.7 million votes, surpassing his 2019 victory by millions and a significant margin.
Cherif, representing the Movement of Society for Peace, received nearly 950,000 votes, or 9.6%, while Youcef Aouchiche of the Socialist Forces Front garnered over 580,000 votes, equating to 6.1%.
Both challengers exceeded the threshold for campaign expense reimbursement, as Algeria’s laws allow funding for campaigns that secure over 5% of the vote.
Initially, the election authority reported Cherif and Aouchiche with 3.2% and 2.2% of the vote, respectively, but the retabulation significantly increased their vote shares.
Critics had condemned their participation, viewing the election as a façade for Algeria’s political elite amidst wider political repression.
Despite calls for a boycott, the campaigns urged participation, and voter turnout reached 46.1%, surpassing the 39.9% seen in the 2019 election.
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