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ALGERIA-VOTE-CANDIDATES
Algeria registers 22 candidates for presidential vote
ALGIERS, Oct 27, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Algeria’s election authority has
registered 22 candidates for a December presidential election, including two
former prime ministers under former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the
official APS agency reported Sunday.
Former premiers Ali Benflis and Abdelmadjid Tebboune had submitted their
candidacies for the December 12 vote before the deadline for nominations
passed Saturday.
Both are considered front-runners in an election which however is opposed
by the mass protest movement that alongside the army forced Bouteflika to
resign in April.
Activists are demanding sweeping reforms before any vote takes place, and
say Bouteflika-era figures still in power must not use the presidential poll
as an opportunity to appoint his successor.
Polls originally planned for July 4 were postponed due to a lack of viable
candidates. Observers are predicting a weak turnout in December.
Benflis, 75, served as premier under Bouteflika from 2000 to 2003.
After his dismissal, Benflis ran as Bouteflika’s main opponent in 2004 and
2014, coming a distant second both times as the president was re-elected with
over 80 percent of the vote.
Tebboune, 73, was a senior civil servant before serving as a minister from
the 1990s.
After Bouteflika assumed the presidency in 1999, Tebboune was minister of
communication, obtaining further portfolios in 2002.
Bouteflika appointed him prime minister in May 2017 before sacking him less
than three months later against a backdrop of factional fighting in
government.
Other Bouteflika-era stalwarts are also running, including Azzedine
Mihoubi, leader of the Democratic National Rally party (RND) which was the
main ally of the former president’s party, and Islamist former tourism
minister Abdelkader Bengrina.
The elections authority, which was recently formed to oversee the vote, has
seven days to approve the nominations before passing the list to Algeria’s
constitutional council for final validation.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1957 hrs