Algeria presidential elections will be held on the 12th of next December, five months after the resigning of the longtime President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, according to his interim successor Abdelkader Bensalah.
“I have decided that the the presidential elections will be held Thursday the twelfth of December,” said Bensalah, who is precluded from standing himself, in a televised address to the nation.
The declaration came after General Ahmed Gaid Salah, Algeria Army Chief insisted that the presidential elections should be held before the end of 2019. Algeria witnessed Salah as a strongman since the fall of Bouteflika who has resigned due to mass protests against him, France 24 reported.
The Algerian protesters returned to the streets last Friday after the parliament passed bills to pave the way for announcing the elections.
They demanded the step down of the key regime figures in addition to overhauling the political institutions before any polls. The demonstrations also are arguing an election under the current framework would only reinforce the status quo.
Earlier this month Salah called for an electoral college to be summoned on September 15 to conduct an election within 90 days, in mid-December.
Two bills were passed by the parliament last week, facilitating the voting announcement.
Belkacem Zeghmati, Algerian Justice Minister presented the bills with both legislative chambers to pass them within two days.
The session in which the bills were passed was boycotted by the opposition party of the People’s National Assembly.
One of the two bills proposed creating an independent election authority and the other bill was a revision of Algeria’s electoral law.
Presidential polls originally planned for July 4 were postponed due to a lack of viable candidates, plunging the country into a constitutional crisis as the 90-day mandate for Bensalah expired in early July.
The lack of viable candidates led to delaying the presidential polls which were originally planned to be launched on the fourth of July.
The army’s high command has rejected any solution to the crisis other than presidential elections “in the shortest possible time”.
Salah refused any solutions and called for holding a presidential election as soon as possible.
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