As Algerians head for the polls to vote in a presidential election, analysts say they do not expect big changes.
Of the 15 hopefuls who said they would run against incumbent president, 78-year-old Abdelmadjid Tebboune, only two received the requisite 600 signatures of support from elected officials, or the 50,000 public signatures from across the country.
Abdelaali Hassani Cherif hails from the moderate Islamist party, the Movement of Society for Peace, and Youcef Aouchiche from the centre-left Socialist Forces Front (FFS).
The candidacies of Hassani or Aouchiche are unlikely to trouble the incumbent greatly, Intissar Fakir, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute said.
Little chance of change
“If you look at their programmes, nobody’s really presenting anything significantly different,” she said, outlining how none of the proposals from either candidate deviate in any meaningful way from existing government policy.
That Algeria’s fortunes have improved under Tebboune’s presidency is hard to dispute. The mass unrest that ushered him into power was eventually quelled, not through government action, but through the COVID pandemic.
Energy prices – Algeria’s principal export – which were low since 2014, recovered dramatically in 2022, with its main customer Europe scrambling to diversify its fuel sources following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
With renewed energy exports has come the influx of foreign currency, staving off prospective measures to cut the country’s generous subsidy system, covering health, housing, social benefits and energy.
Risk remains
However, while victory at the polls may look assured, there remains a degree of risk for the president.
“In 2019 [the year Tebboune was elected], turnout was very low, with only a [small] proportion of those who did turn up voting for him. It’s not much of a mandate,” Riccardo Fabiani, North African project director for the Crisis Group said of the overall measure of support for the president during the previous poll.
“This year, by bringing the vote forward to September [from December, the original date], Tebboune makes it hard for the opposition to campaign … during the hot summer months, as well as head off any challenge from a faction within Tebboune’s principal backers, the…