Lined up on the sofa in the living room with a breathtaking view of the Mediterranean, Sonia and her two sisters remain silent in front of their mother who examines their index fingers. Stained with blue ink, it is proof of their passage through the polling station in the town hall of Baïnem, west of Algiers, during the presidential elections held on Saturday, September 7. The first sister, pushed by a rumour about administrative reprisals against abstentionists, tried to get a stamp on her voter card. She voted blank, unlike the other two, who, driven by the same fear, had, as long as they could, “I voted for “Uncle Tebboune” to get social housing!”they joke. “And how will he know that you voted for him, his uncle Tebboune?”intends to question his skeptical mother.
During his election campaign, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune promised 2 million additional social housing units. Algerians, while during his first term (2019-2024), one and a half million homes have already been delivered, the work on which began several years ago, according to the Ministry of Housing. Former holder of this portfolio, the re-elected head of state knows the importance of this housing, in particular to reduce the rhetoric of Islamists among the most disadvantaged. A way to buy social peace, which did not prevent Algerians from demanding in the streets, in 2019, the departure of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, with the popular movement Hirak, which has since been harshly repressed. “If the party is over and I have to keep quiet or go to jail, I’d rather take advantage of the system.”Judge Sonia.
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has also promised to increase revenues to voters, while the reform of the very costly system of subsidies for basic products, planned for 2022, seems to have been forgotten. Once in power, if the public coffers allow it, the State will contribute. Since 2019, the State has invested several tens of billions of euros in seawater desalination plants, the expansion of the railway network, the mining industry and other structuring projects. However, all are under threat of a collapse in global hydrocarbon prices, as happened in 2016.
In a report published in May, the World Bank attempted to reassure “dynamism” of the Algerian economy. Since 2021, its growth has continued “at a rate close to 4%, in a context where countries were struggling to achieve positive growth”Algeria, Africa’s third-largest economy with an expected gross domestic product (GDP) of $267 billion in 2024, according to the International Monetary Fund, has built up a safety cushion: it had $69 billion in cash reserves at the end of 2023, commented the financial institution’s resident representative, Kamel Braham. But ongoing work to diversify its economy, which would allow leaders to escape their dependence on gas and oil, is not as advanced as Tebboune claims.
You have 50.83% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
