Algeria’s legislative elections saw a record-low turnout, with just 21 percent of the 25-million electorate casting ballots, as the incumbent National Liberation Front won the most seats, the election board said on Monday.
The FLN secured 90 of the parliament’s 407 seats in the July 2 poll, which was marred by public apathy and controversy over the government’s disqualification of roughly a third of would-be candidates.
Karim Khelfane, the interim head of the National Independent Elections Authority (ANIE), said after announcing the results that the high abstention was “not specific to Algeria”, and praised the elections as transparent.
Algeria had seen a then-historic low turnout of 23 percent in the 2021 poll — the first since a major pro-democracy protest movement swept through the country in 2019.
The Hirak movement erupted in February of that year and led to the resignation of long-serving president Abdelaziz Bouteflika two months later.
Protests stalled in 2020 amid Covid-19 pandemic restrictions and against a background of increased repression of Hirak activists, political opponents, journalists and bloggers.
President Abdelmajid Tebboune was elected in December 2019 and won a second term in 2024.
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