‘People are unsurprisingly angry’: Algeria’s new president elected amid furious public protest

Algerians greeted their newly elected septuagenarian president with another round of mass protests, the 43rd consecutive Friday of anti-government demonstrations that have already felled the country’s longtime president and continue to challenge an entrenched elite in power for six decades.

The protests, which flooded the main streets of the capital, Algiers, and other cities, came a day after General Ahmed Gaid Salah, the country’s leading military figure, pushed through elections to put a new government in place.

Abdelmadjid Tebboune, a former prime minister, was elected president with 58 per cent of the vote.

Although the government claimed a voter turnout of 40 per cent, no independent observers were invited to monitor the election, few international journalists were granted visas, and official numbers showed turnout as low as less than 1 per cent in some provinces.

Video posted to the internet showed empty election centres, with poll workers milling about. Protesters calling for a boycott of the vote flooded the streets on election day, in some cases storming election centres and tossing out ballots.

The wave of protest, which is called Hirak – or movement – pushed out long-time president Abdelaziz Bouteflika in April, but has continued to take to the streets to demand the dismantling of a military and commercial elite rooted in the 1950s war of independence from France.

The election results were announced by Mohamed Charfi, president of the election authority, in a news conference broadcast on state television.

Mr Tebboune is known as a close associate of Mr Bouteflika, serving previously as his minister of housing. He is a member of the central committee of the National Liberation Front, the country’s dominant political party.

During the campaign, Mr Tebboune promised to reflect the aspirations of the protest movement, and create a new economic model that would move away from the country’s oil-based finances and build a “knowledge economy”.

However, he is widely regarded as a political insider and a favourite of the establishment. His elevation to the presidency appears to have energised Hirak, which now has a new target for its ire.

“People are unsurprisingly angry,” one activist in Algiers told The Independent. “They say they’ll keep going.”

Mr Tebboune’s son, Khaled, has been a particular lightning rod of criticism. He has been associated with alleged criminals charged in the smuggling of 700kg of cocaine to an Algerian port last year. The son, who has not been formally charged with any crime, has also been accused of using his father’s position to obtain real-estate deals for business partners.

During Friday’s protests, some demonstrators dabbed their faces with white powder to mock Mr Tebboune’s son.

“The countdown for Tebboune’s departure has kicked off,” journalist Abdelkader Benmassoud wrote on Twitter.