You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Demonstrations Sweep Algeria as Protesters Demand Boycott of Today’s Election

HeadlineDec 12, 2019

In Algeria, mass demonstrations rocked the country Wednesday as protesters demanded the cancellation of today’s presidential election to replace Algeria’s longtime President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was forced from power by a mass uprising in April.

Protester: “I won’t vote, because these elections themselves are a betrayal. Everyone who votes is committing a betrayal against our country, because the summit of stupidity is to try the same experience with the same people and tools and expect a different result.”

Extremely low turnout at the polls is expected today amid widespread calls to boycott the election, with demonstrators saying that all the candidates are part of Algeria’s long-ruling elite. On Tuesday, two previous prime ministers were convicted and sentenced to prison over a corruption scandal that also ensnared other top government officials and businessmen.

Topics:
The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top