When Algerians voted to elect their new president on Sept. 7, few expected the results to be anything other than a foregone conclusion. Unsurprisingly, the following day, the country’s electoral commission—known by its French acronym, ANIE—reported that the incumbent, 78-year-old President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, had won reelection, with preliminary figures pointing to him securing over 94 percent of the vote.
His competitors, Abdelali Hassan Cherif of the Movement of Society and Peace—an Islamist party—and Youcef Auchiche of the Socialist Forces Front, reportedly secured just over 3 percent and 2 percent of the vote, respectively.
As soon as the election results were announced, however, their credibility was shot to pieces. Mohamed Charfi, the head of Algeria’s election watchdog, said on Sept. 7 that the level of “provisional average turnout” surpassed 48 percent. But a day later, additional information revealed significant incongruencies that would put the turnout level at 25 percent at best, leading not just Cherif and Auchiche to challenge the validity of the ANIE’s tallies, but also Tebboune.