ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — Algeria’s constitutional court on Saturday upheld President Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s landslide victory in last weekend’s elections after reviewing vote counts that he and his two opponents had challenged.
The court said it had examined local voting data to resolve questions about irregularities raised by Tebboune’s opponents in two appeals on Monday.
“After verifying the minutes of the regions and correcting the errors noted in the counting of the votes,” Tebboune’s share of the vote was reduced and it was determined that his two opponents had won hundreds of thousands of votes more than previously reported, said Omar Belhadj, the president of the Constitutional Court.
The court’s decision makes Tebboune the official winner of the September 7 election. His government will then decide when he will be inaugurated for a second term.
The court’s figures showed Tebboune leading Islamist challenger Abdellali Hassan Cherif by about 75 percentage points. With 7.7 million votes, the president won 84.3% of the vote in his first term, surpassing his 2019 victory by millions of votes and double the margin.
Cherif, who ran with the Movement of Society for Peace, won nearly 950,000 votes, or about 9.6%. Youcef Aouchiche of the Socialist Forces Front won more than 580,000 votes, or about 6.1%.
Notably, both challengers exceeded the threshold required to receive reimbursement for campaign expenses. Under Algeria’s electoral laws, political campaigns that receive more than 5% of the vote are paid for. Results released last week by the electoral authority showed Cherif and Aouchiche with 3.2% and 2.2% of the vote, respectively. Both were criticized for participating in an election that government critics have condemned as a way for Algeria’s political elite to make a show of democracy amid broader political repression.
Throughout the campaign, each of the three campaigns emphasized participation, urging voters and young people to take part and ignoring calls to boycott the vote. The court announced that the nationwide turnout was 46.1%, which was higher than the 2019 presidential election, when 39.9% of the electorate participated.
