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Registered | 21,871,393 | ||||||||||||||||
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Turnout | 51.70% | ||||||||||||||||
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Results by province | |||||||||||||||||
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Presidential elections were held in Algeria on 17 April 2014. [1] Incumbent President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was re-elected with 82% of the vote. Issues in the campaign included a desire for domestic stability after the bloody civil war of the 1990s, [2] the state of the economy (30% unemployment), [2] the frail health of the 15 year incumbent and 77-year-old president whose speech was "slurred and inaudible" in his only public outing during the campaign, [2] and the less-than-wholehearted support given the president by the normally united and discrete ruling class. [2]
Following the 2009 presidential elections, the region and the country (to a lesser degree) was engulfed by the Arab Spring. A series of protests took place between 2010 and 2012, but the country did not undergo regime change unlike neighbouring Tunisia and Libya.
In November 2013, the National Liberation Front endorsed the ailing incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika as its candidate in the race. [3] Bouteflika's candidacy was confirmed by then-Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal (who would be later re-appointed to said post) in late February. [4] Ali Benflis, a former Prime Minister, announced on 19 January 2014 that he was running for the presidency. [5] Louisa Hanoune, the secretary-general of the Workers Party, presented her candidacy on 21 January 2014. [6]
The campaign officially started on 22 March 2014. [7] Bouteflika only appeared in the campaigning twice, [8] leaving others in the party to campaign.
The Islamist Movement of Society for Peace announced on 25 January 2014 that it would boycott the elections. [9] The Islamic Renaissance Movement announced on 7 February 2014 that it will also boycott the vote. [10] On 22 March, about 5,000 people rallied in Algiers for a boycott due to Bouteflika seeking another term and called for reforms to the political system. Both Islamic and secular parties were present with Rally for Culture and Democracy's Mohsen Belabes saying: "The people here are the people who have been excluded, who have been put aside, but this is the real Algeria. The regime will collapse, but Algeria will survive". [11]
A movement called Barakat expressed rejection of a fourth term for Abdelaziz Bouteflika, opposed the nature of the elections, and has organized protests demanding a new political order. [12] [13] [14]
An opinion poll conducted by Echaâb in March showed the incumbent president Bouteflika winning. [15]
The electoral commission reported that there were just a few incidents which entailed just 130 complaints. [16] However, incidents of violence were recorded as groups of youths in the Berber-dominated Kabylie's Bouira region ransacked voting centres in Raffour, M'Chedellah and Saharij just after they opened at 7:00, with riot police then firing tear gas at them. At least 70 people were injured, including 47 policemen as voting was temporarily suspended. In Raffour, masked and armed youths with slings chanted hostile slogans and confronted the police were firing tear gas. [17]
Interior Minister Taieb Belaiz announced on 18 April that Abdelaziz Bouteflika had won 81.53% of the vote, while Ali Benflis came in second with 12.18%. [18] The turnout was 51.7%, down from the 75% turnout in 2009. [19] Turnout was as low as 20.01% in Tizi Ouzou to as high as 82% in Relizane. [20] Nearly 10% of ballots cast were blank or invalid.
Candidate | Party | Votes | % | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Abdelaziz Bouteflika | National Liberation Front | 8,332,598 | 81.53 | |
Ali Benflis | Independent | 1,244,918 | 12.18 | |
Abdelaziz Belaïd | Future Front | 343,624 | 3.36 | |
Louisa Hanoune | Workers' Party | 140,253 | 1.37 | |
Ali Fawzi Rebaine | Ahd 54 | 101,046 | 0.99 | |
Moussa Touati | Algerian National Front | 57,590 | 0.56 | |
Total | 10,220,029 | 100.00 | ||
Valid votes | 10,220,029 | 90.38 | ||
Invalid/blank votes | 1,087,449 | 9.62 | ||
Total votes | 11,307,478 | 100.00 | ||
Registered voters/turnout | 21,871,393 | 51.70 | ||
Source: Interior Ministry |
After the polls closed, Benflis criticised the election as having been marked by "fraud on a massive scale." The turnout figures were also criticised for allegedly being inflated by unnamed activists and opposition politicians. [19] Benflis told his supporters at his headquarters that due to the scale of the alleged fraud and irregularities: "Our history will remember this date as a great crime against the nation by stealing the voice of the citizens and blocking popular will." At the same time, Bouteflika supporters celebrated with fireworks. [16]
The president of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria is the head of state and chief executive of Algeria, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Algerian People's National Armed Forces.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika was an Algerian politician and diplomat who served as the seventh president of Algeria from 1999 to his resignation in 2019.
The Movement of Society for Peace, sometimes known by its shortened form Hamas, is a Sunni Islamist party in Algeria, led by Mahfoud Nahnah until his death in 2003. Its current leader is Abderrazak Makri. It is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Ali Benflis is an Algerian politician who was Head of Government of Algeria from 2000 to 2004. In 2003, he became the general secretary of the National Liberation Front party. Benflis was a candidate in the 2004 presidential election, but the poll resulted in the re-election of Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Benflis ran yet again as an independent candidate in the 2014 Algerian presidential elections held on 17 April 2014. The result was that Abdelaziz Bouteflika was reelected as president with 81.53% of the votes, with Benflis ending as runner-up with 12.18%.
Louisa Hanoune is the head of Algeria's Workers' Party. In 2004, she became the first woman to run for President of Algeria. Hanoune was imprisoned by the government several times prior to the legalization of political parties in 1988. She was jailed soon after she joined the Trotskyist Social Workers Organisation, an illegal party, in 1981 and again after the 1988 October Riots, which brought about the end of the National Liberation Front's (FLN) single-party rule. During Algeria's civil war of the 1990s, Hanoune was one of the few opposition voices in parliament, and, despite her party's laicist values, a strong opponent of the government's "eradication" policy toward Islamists. In January 1995, she signed the Sant'Egidio Platform together with representatives of other opposition parties, notably the Islamic Salvation Front, the radical Islamist party whose dissolution by military decree brought about the start of the civil war.
Presidential elections were held in Algeria on 8 April 2004. Incumbent President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was re-elected with 85% of the vote.
Parliamentary elections were held in Algeria on 30 May 2002 to elect members of the People's National Assembly. The governing National Liberation Front (FLN) won a majority of seats in the election. The election suffered from a low turnout, violence and boycotts by some opposition parties.
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Presidential elections were held in Algeria on 9 April 2009. The result was a victory for incumbent President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was re-elected with 90% of the vote.
Presidential elections were held in Algeria on 15 April 1999. Abdelaziz Bouteflika was elected with 74% of the vote after the other six candidates withdrew on the eve of the elections.
Parliamentary elections were held in Algeria on 10 May 2012. The incumbent coalition, consisting of the National Liberation Front (FLN) of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and the National Rally for Democracy (RND) of Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia, held on to power after winning a majority of seats. The Islamist parties of the Green Algeria Alliance lost seats.
Events from the year 2012 in Algeria
The following lists events that happened during 2014 in Algeria.
Presidential elections were held in Algeria on 12 December 2019. The election had originally been scheduled for 18 April, but was postponed due to sustained weekly protests against plans by the incumbent president Abdelaziz Bouteflika to run for a fifth term. Bouteflika resigned on 2 April and Abdelkader Bensalah was elected acting president by parliament a week later. On 10 April the election was rescheduled for 4 July. On 2 June the Constitutional Council postponed the elections again, citing a lack of candidates. A new electoral authority, Autorité nationale indépendante des élections (ANIE), was created in mid-September as an alternative to the existing Haute instance indépendante de surveillance des élections (HIISE) defined by the 2016 constitution. The election was rescheduled for 12 December 2019 and ANIE, of disputed constitutional validity, announced five valid candidates on 2 November. In their 200000 strong protest on 1 November, Algerian protestors rejected the 12 December election and called for a radical change in the system to take place first. The Forces of the Democratic Alternative (FDA) alliance and the Justice and Development Front also called for boycotting the 12 December election, and the FDA called for creating a constituent assembly.
The 2019–2021 Algerian protests, also called Revolution of Smiles or Hirak, began on 16 February 2019, six days after Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced his candidacy for a fifth presidential term in a signed statement. These protests, without precedent since the Algerian Civil War, were peaceful and led the military to insist on Bouteflika's immediate resignation, which took place on 2 April 2019. By early May, a significant number of power-brokers close to the deposed administration, including the former president's younger brother Saïd, had been arrested.
Presidential elections were held in Guinea on 18 October 2020. Incumbent president Alpha Condé was running for a third term. He was challenged by former prime minister Cellou Dalein Diallo, as well as several other candidates.
Saïd Bouteflika is an Algerian politician and academic. He is the brother and was a special adviser of Abdelaziz Bouteflika in his former role as President of Algeria, on whom he would have had "considerable influence", especially after the president suffered a serious stroke in 2013. He was also an assistant professor at the University of Science and Technology Houari Boumediene (USTHB).
A constitutional referendum was held in Algeria on 1 November 2020. The subject of the referendum was a revision of the Algerian constitution, and it follows a series of protests known as Hirak.
The 2014 Algerian protests or Barakat Revolution was mass protests and a wave of nonviolent demonstrations against president Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s plans for a fourth term, ending up winning the 2014 Algerian presidential election despite boycotts and opposition protests, which is dispersed usually by Tear gas. Thousands continued to resist the violence for the next 2 months.
Presidential elections were held in Algeria on 7 September 2024. Originally scheduled for December 2024, they were brought forward by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. Tebboune was challenged by Youcef Aouchiche of the Socialist Forces Front and Abdellah Hassan Cherif of the Movement of Society for Peace. Tebboune won a second term in office. Conflicting reports about the election's turnout by the National Independent Electoral Authority led to criticism from the three candidates. Aouchiche and Cherif challenged the results.