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The majority of Algerian voters turned their backs to the referendum on the Constitutional reform, with which the authorities want to turn the page of the popular protest movement Hirak, but that had a very low participation.
The 61,000 polling stations in Algeria they closed at 7:00 p.m. local time and then the counting of a query began whose official results will not be known until Monday.
The participation levels, the most important factor in a vote boycotted by the opposition, stood at only 18.44% at 4:00 p.m., according to Mohamed Charfi, president of the National Independent Authority for Elections (ANIE).
In the presidential elections of December 12, also boycotted by the protest movement, turnout was 39.93%, that is, the lowest of all pluralist presidential elections in the history of the country.
An AFP journalist attended the recount at two polling stations in the capital Algiers, in which the turnout was only 11.5% and 12.5% respectively. This massive abstention in the whole country represents a failure for the Algerian regime.
Faced with a totally indifferent population, no one doubts the victory of the yes, after a campaign in which the supporters of the no could not even hold rallies.
Sunday’s referendum was also marked by the absence of its main promoter, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who was not in Algeria having been hospitalized abroad, although his wife voted for him by proxy.
In a message broadcast on Saturday night by the official APS agency, Tebboune assured that “the Algerian people will come, once again, to this appointment with history (…) to establish a new era and realize the aspirations of our people for a Strong, modern and democratic state ”.
The date of the referendum was not chosen at random: November 1 marks the anniversary of the beginning of the War of Independence against the French colonial power (1954-1962).
Tebboune, 74, has been in Germany since Wednesday where he was transferred to undergo “medical examinations” after the appearance of suspected cases of covid-19 in people around him. His condition is “stable and not worrisome,” according to the presidency.
“Change of facade”
Since his inauguration, Tebboune has committed to reform the 1996 Constitution, reaching out to the Hirak protesters. With this, it considers the demands of the movement fulfilled.
But the latter rejected “in substance and form” a text that they see as a “change of façade” when what they demand is a “change of regime” and called for a boycott of the consultation.
The Algerian people “stood up for democracy, not for an umpteenth Arab presidential regime,” Ghalem, 40, a professor living in Sidi Bel Abbès, in the northwest, told AFP.
Arisen in February 2019 by the exhaustion of Algerians opposed to a fifth term of President Abdelaziz Buteflika, the Hirak calls for a “dismantling of the system” that has been in force in Algeria since 1962.
Buteflika resigned in April 2019 but the system is still there.
In fact, the new Basic Law emphasizes a number of rights and freedoms to satisfy the aspirations of the “Hirakists”, but maintains the essentials of a presidential regime.
“Nothing has changed, we continue in an ultra-presidential regime”, states the constitutionalist Massensen Cherbi.
During the campaign, supporters of the yes insisted that the project laid the foundations for a “new Algeria”.
According to the Minister of Communication and government spokesman, Ammar Belhimer, the people were going to go “en masse” to the polls to lay “a new stone in the process of national construction and make the maneuvers of the enemies of Algeria fail”.
Almost twenty months after the outbreak of protests, the referendum is a test for a Hirak weakened by daily repression and the interruption of demonstrations due to the health crisis.
This Sunday there were several arrests of protesters in Algiers and in Tizi Uzu (north), according to the National Committee for the Release of Detainees (CNLD).
Some 90 people, including activists, bloggers and journalists, are in jail for events related to the protests, the majority for posts on Facebook, according to the CNLD.
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