On this electoral date, 115,232 candidates for municipal council seats, and 18,910 candidates for state popular councils, are competing..
The first hours of voting witnessed a modest turnout, which is usual in such election dates, where the turnout is expected to rise in the afternoon and in the last hour before the polls close, set at 7 pm. Official results are expected to be announced on Sunday.
Experts are unanimous in describing the three weeks that accompanied the election campaign as “dull”, explaining this by several political, climatic and social issues, as political analyst Amer Rakhaila explains to “Sky News Arabia”.
He said, “The three weeks of the election campaign were characterized by coldness in the capital, and this was reflected in the rest of the country’s states, with the exception of a few posters and gatherings in closed rooms, Algeria did not witness a prominent activity of electoral campaigns.”.
Rakhaila believed that “the climate factor represented by cold weather and rainfall, and the accompanying news of road closures and a threat to a number of buildings, had a significant impact on the level of the electoral campaign.”.
This came at a time when the street is still looking at the local elected officials as “officials with limited powers, and unable to improve life in their cities,” according to the analyst..
These elections come as the third electoral date to be organized during the era of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, amid pledges to reform all institutions and grant the new elected officials broader powers, by reconsidering the tax law..
Rakhila said that reviewing laws in this context “would restore the crisis of political legitimacy, which is one of the biggest challenges facing the new Algeria.”.
In the economic aspect, the elections are facing the problem of local development, with a decline in the purchasing power of the citizen, due to the high prices of basic materials in the recent period..
And the economic expert, Hamid Alawi, said in statements to “Sky News Arabia”, that these matters “would significantly affect the turnout at the ballot boxes.”
According to official figures announced by Tebboune, there are about 900 poor municipalities that are funded by state subsidies.
The Algerian authorities expressed their optimism, and confirmed that the turnout for local funds would exceed the turnout for the 2021 legislation, in which the voter rate reached 30%..
The head of the National Election Observation Authority, Muhammad Sharafi, said: “All the existing indicators, especially the high turnout during the period of the exceptional review of the electoral lists, in addition to the competition that existed between the candidates during the electoral campaign, indicate that there is awareness among citizens of the necessity of choosing who represents them, and that The success of the vote is the basis for getting the country out of the crisis“.
In terms of numbers, 9,872 popular gatherings were organized, of which 1,011 were for political parties, and 5,064 were for independent lists. The leaders of the political formations were active during the campaign, through about 180 gatherings, while another 9,000 gatherings were canceled for various reasons..
In these elections, the Algerian government is betting a lot on the awareness of young people, and has offered several privileges to build bridges of trust between it and the younger generation.
The authorities have taken several decisions that would raise the rate of participation and turnout, perhaps the most prominent of which was the decision personally announced by the President, related to allocating a financial grant to youth suffering from unemployment.
More than 23 million Algerians were invited to choose elected officials at the municipal and district levels, as the number of polling stations reached more than 13,000 centers, comprising more than 61,000 polling stations..
The boycott crisis is on
With the exception of 8 municipalities, 4 of them in the state of Tizi Ouzou and 4 in the state of Bejaia, all the municipalities were involved in the electoral process, after the authority provided several guarantees, most notably the fight against “the interference of corrupt money in the political game.”.
On the eve of the election date, Tebboune spoke about the necessity of participation, and said during the periodic meeting that he gathered with the national press: “I hope for a strong voter participation, for the desired change.”“.
Despite the magnitude of the challenges, the partisan political scene in Algeria is optimistic about these elections. The leader of the National Liberation Front, Abderrahmane Beliat, stressed that Algeria today “is taking an important step to build the new path.”.
In general, the authority does not seem concerned about some municipalities boycotting the elections in the Kabylie region, Beliat told Sky News Arabia, pointing out that reaching the November 27 localities fund is a “great achievement for democracy in Algeria.”.
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