Algerian presidential Election Date Results Candidates Voting Live

Algerian presidential Election Dates 2019

Algerian presidential Election Date: 12 December 2019​ 

The 2019 Algerian presidential election is expected to be 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 re-scheduled 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 re-scheduled 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

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The election in numbers

• 24,474,000 registered voters
• Of these, 914,000 are registered to vote abroad
• 61,014 polling stations across the country
• 135 mobile polling stations catering for Algeria's nomads in the southern desert region

Convocation and candidate validation

• September 2019: Convocation of the electorate by the Acting Head of State
• 26 October 2019: Deadline for applications
• 2 November 2019: Validation and publication of the list of qualified candidates by ANIE
• 9 November 2019: Validation and publication of the list of candidates by the Constitutional Council

The Electoral system of Algerian  

The President of Algeria is elected using the two-round system; if no candidate receives a majority of the vote in the first round, a second round will be held.

Electoral bodies

The Algerian Constitution of 2016 created the Haute instance indépendante de surveillance des élections  (HIISE) to have overall responsibility for organising elections. For the third attempt to organise the 2019 presidential election, the Algerian lower and upper houses of parliament created the Autorité nationale indépendante des élections (ANIE). Lawyer Faïz Moussi and constitutional expert Ahmed Betatache described the procedures for creating ANIE as rushed and unconstitutional.. Fouad Makhlouf, secretary-general of HIISE, had stated earlier, in April 2019, that the replacement of HIISE's role by an alternative electoral body would be unconstitutional.

Algerian Parties and Leaders

Bensalah is not eligible to participate in the presidential election..

18 April 2019 cancelled election

On 3 March 2019, a day after his 82nd birthday and while undergoing medical tests in Switzerland, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika formally submitted his candidacy, but said in a statement read on state TV that he would not serve a full term if re-elected. Instead, he promised to organise a national conference and set a date for an early election which he would not participate in. The announcement followed weeks of protests against his plan to seek a fifth term in office. A week later, on 11 March 2019, Bouteflika withdrew from the race and postponed the election.

On 1 November 2018, journalist Ghani Mahdi  announced that he would be a candidate in the election.

On 4 April 2019, Ali Ghediri, a former Director of Human Resources at the Ministry of Defense, announced his candidacy.

4 July 2019 cancelled election

The 4 July 2019 election had two candidates who applied: Abdelhakim Hamadi from Jijel, born 23 August 1965, who trained as a vet, worked in the state sector and became a businessman; and Hamid Touahri, a aeronautical mechanical engineer who worked in medical sales and construction and managed an audiovisual production firm. Both candidates' applications were lodged on 25 May, and later rejected by the Constitutional Council, which cancelled the election due to what it called the "impossibility" of organising the election.

12 December 2019 election

Potential candidates Ahmed Gaid Salah and Noureddine Bedoui won't run.Former prime minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem was expected to be a candidate. The Tajamou Amel El-Djazaïr former minister Amar Ghoul (in prison at the time) announced his participation in the vote.

145 people picked up their application forms, including:

• Ali Benflis, former head of government;
• Abdelaziz Belaid, president of the El Moustakbal Front;
• Aissa Belhadi, president of the Front de la bonne gouvernance;
• Abdelkader Bengrina, president of the El Bina movement;
• Ali Zeghdoud, president of the Algerian Rassemblement party;
• Mourad Arroudj, president of Errafah;
• Belkacem Sahli, president of the Republican National Alliance;
• Abdelmadjid Tebboune, former Prime Minister;
• Rabah Bencherif;
• Azzedine Mihoubi, former Minister of Culture;
• Rabah Bencherif;
• Souleymen Bakhlili, journalist;
• Ahmed Ben Nâamane, writer;
• Abderrahmane Arrar, coordinator of the Civil Force for Change.

The five candidates announced by Mohamed Chorfi, head of the electoral authority, on 2 November 2019 are:

• former prime minister under Bouteflika, Abdelmadjid Tebboune
• former prime minister under Bouteflika, Ali Benflis
• former culture minister Azzedine Mihoubi
• former tourism minister Abdelkader Bengrina 
• head of the El Moustakbal Front , Abdelaziz Belaïd.

Al Jazeera English described the five candidates as "all part of the political establishment", whose departure from power is one of the main aims of the 2019 Algerian protests. Thomson Reuters described the candidates as "men on the ballot [who] all have close links with the establishment, and though some of them pushed for reforms, many still see them as part of an entrenched, unchanging elite."

Algerian past election results