Who is Abdelmadjid Tebboune?
Abdelmadjid Tebboune was born on 17 November 1945 in Mecheria, Algeria and was elected the 8th President of Algeria on 19 December 2019 and re-elected for a second term on 7 September 2024
He is married to Fatima Zohra Bella, and has five children: Saloua, Maha, Salaheddine Ilyes, Mohamed and Khaled.
He graduated from the National School of Administration in 1965 after studying economics and finance. After graduation, his first job was as an administrative clerk in the region of Saoura, southwestern Algeria, before he then became secretary general of Djefa province (1975–1976) Adrar (1977–1979) Blida (1979–1982) and M’Sila (1982–1983).
In 1983 Tebboune was appointed governor of Adrar Province; the following year he became governor of Tiaret (1984–1989) and then Tizi Ouzou (1989–1991).
Throughout his time as governor, he was devoted to the regime and the ruling party, Le Front de libération nationale and the old Third World and Non-Aligned Movement ideology which is now completely obsolete. It is clear in his recent speeches that this will continue to shape his domestic and foreign policy during his presidency.
Since 1991 Tebboune has held the following government positions:
Under President Chadli Benjedid
- Minister-delegate for local government June 1991–February 1992
Under President Abdelaziz Bouteflika:
- Minister of communication and culture, December 1999–June 2000
- Minister-delegate for local government, June 2000–May 2001
- Minister of housing and urban planning, September 2012–May 2017
- Minister of commerce, January 2017–May 2017
- Prime minister, May 2017–August 2017
Algeria under Abdelmadjid Tebboune
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune won the 2019 presidential election, thanks to mass popular demonstrations (known as the hirak) throughout 2019 that had called for democratic reforms. Observers reported that the elections was conducted without significant problems or irregularities, but they noted restrictions on civil liberties during the election period as well as a lack of transparency in vote-counting procedures. Algeria held a constitutional referendum on 1 November 2020 — the anniversary of the start of Algeria’s war of independence with France back in 1954, a date the government chose for its symbolism.
Algerian political scientist and Lawyers says that the referendum was an attempt to ‘suppress’ the protest movement and ‘turn the page’ with a constitutional ‘quick fix’ and an expansion of presidential power. civil society who supported Tebboune to win his first election were not consulted on the draft of the new constitution which the referendum on 1 November 2020 approved. This is the fifth constitutional change since independence, with four constitutions introduced in: 1963, 1976, 1989 and 1996.
According to Al Jazeera TV, ‘the referendum text was passed with 66.8 percent of votes cast, constitutional council president Kamel Fenniche announced on Algerian public television on Thursday, as he welcomed a transparent vote “held “under good conditions. However, the 23.8 percent turnout was a record low for a major vote in Algeria, with fewer than 15 percent of eligible voters endorsing the constitutional document, a key project of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
This referendum was followed by legislative elections in June 2021.
According to the new constitution:
Head of state term length: ART 92 of the 1 November 2020 states with regard to the length of the head of state’s term that shall be five (5) years.
No one may serve more than two consecutive or discontinuous terms. In the event a presidential term is interrupted because of resignation or for any other reason, the term is considered to be complete.
Art 95 set out that: the President of the Republic shall have the following powers and prerogatives:
Note. The Algerian Constitution refers to “he” throughout, however, there were female presidential candidates in previous elections but the regime and Algerian electoral commission does not encourage them.
- he shall be the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic;
- he shall be responsible for National Defence;
- he shall decide to send army units abroad after ratification of the Parliament by a 2/3 majority;
- he shall decide and conduct the foreign policy of the Nation;
- he shall chair the Council of Ministers;
- he may appoint the Prime Minister and terminate his functions and may delegate to him some of his powers, except for those stipulated in Article 97;
- he shall both appoint the head of the government and terminate his functions after consultation with the parliamentary majority;
- he shall hold regulatory authority;
- he shall sign the presidential decrees;
- he shall have the right to grant pardons, the right to remission or commutation of punishment;
- he may refer, on any issue of national importance, to the people by means of referendum;
- he shall summon the electorate;
- he shall conclude and ratify international treaties;
- he shall award decorations, distinctions and honorary titles of the State.
However, as in the past, the president can organise a referendum to amend the constitution to allow him to extend his presidential mandate.
His first term:
He spent his first term in office eliminating what he called the enemies of the country and agents of foreign States and corrupt officials and their associates. Members opposition parties, journalists, members of civil Societies; Writers; and Lawyers have been charged with crimes. Every member of the previous government with whom he worked – Prime Ministers, Ministers, advisers – businessmen and family members of the last President Abdelaziz Bouteflika are now languishing in prison and their wealth has been confiscated on the grounds of extensive corruption under the Bouteflika regime of which Abdelmadjid Tebboune was a member.
During Chadli Benjedid’s presidency he was Minister-Delegate for Local Government from 1991 to 1992, while under President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, he served in the government as Minister of Communication and Culture from 1999 to 2000 and then as Minister-Delegate for Local Government from 2000 to 2001. He was the Minister of Housing and Urban Planning from 2001 to 2002. In 2012, he returned to the post of Minister of Housing in the government of Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal who was sentenced to 15 years in December 2019.
Algeria’s election result 2024
No Surprise
On 8 September, Mohamed Charfi, head of the National Independent Elections Authority, told a press conference that more than 5.3 million people voted for Tebboune, accounting for ‘94.65% of the vote’. This was in spite of record abstentions that were reported in the local and international news. This announcement was a shock throughout Algeria. Even the re-elected President could not believe his luck.
‘A triumph’, applauded the official Algerian press, welcoming the re-election of Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
The distortion was so obvious that the campaign managers of the three candidates – Tebboune himself, Abdelaali Hassani, from the Islamo-conservative Movement for Society for Peace, and Youcef Aouchiche, from the Socialist Forces Front –filed appeals with Algeria’s Constitutional Court on 9 September 2024, they. This is the available means of challenging election results.
On Saturday 14 September, the Constitutional Court simply, ignoring international criticism from NGOs such as Amnesty International about ‘harsh repression’ and ‘zero tolerance of dissenting voices’ in the country, announced that 11.2 million people had voted out of 24.3 million registered voters. They detailed that there were 1.7 million cancelled votes, and therefore a total of 9.4 million votes were cast, confirmed the re-election of the outgoing president, with 84.3% of the votes based on final results, instead of the nearly 95% initially announced. The participation rate and scores of the other two candidates were also reviewed.
The Constitutional Court also revised up the votes of the outgoing president’s two opponents, with 9.56% for the moderate Islamist candidate Abdelaali Hassani (instead of 3.17%) and 6.14% for the socialist candidate Youcef Aouchiche (instead of 2.16%).
In contrast to his 2024 result, in December 2019, Abdelmadjid Tebboune was elected with 58% of the vote on a turnout of around 40%, in the tense context of the Hirak, the massive pro-democracy movement, which had just ousted his predecessor, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, from power.
The Next 5 Years:
Diplomatic confrontation with France and Morocco will continue:
Algeria and France
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune will also continue his argument with the French leadership over his demands that France repent, apologise and pay compensation to Algeria for war crimes committed during the Algerian war of independence, although President Emmanuel Macron made it clear on 20 January 2021 that ‘there will be no repentance nor apologies’ for the occupation of Algeria but France will aim to promote reconciliation. Indeed, each time when he becomes annoyed with French foreign policy, he recalls his ambassador to France. For example, on 31 July 2024 President Emmanuel Macron wrote a letter to King Mohamed VI endorsing the Moroccan plan for the Western Sahara which was praised not only within his own ranks, but also by lawmakers from other French political parties. President Tebboune’s reaction to President Macron’s letter to King Mohammed VI was swift and on 30 July 2024 Algeria announced that it was recalling its ambassador from France with immediate effect and to date, January 2025, he has not returned to his post. Indeed, this is the 3rd occasion since Abdelmadjid Tebboune became president that an ambassador has been recalled. However, Algeria never recalled its ambassadors from the 130 countries who recognised Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara and 29 of them have opened consulates in Laayoune and Dakhla. In 2022, Spain supported Morocco’s autonomy plan for the Western Sahara and since 2022 Spanish investors have opened their HQ in the area.
The French Ambassador to Morocco visited Laayoune and Dakhla from 11 to 13 November 2024 accompanied embassy officials responsible for culture, educational, economic matters and a delegation of French investors. France is set to become the first European country to install a diplomatic representative in Dakhla to help French investors.
President Tebboune’s his first televised interview after winning the election was with Algeria National Television on 6 October 2024, and he was asked if his long-awaited state visit to France still on. He replied ‘I will not go to Canossa’.The German expression ‘Gang nach Canossa’ (to go to Canossa) has come to mean humbling oneself and asking an enemy for forgiveness. This is what the Holy Roman Emperor King Henry IV had to do when he was ex-communicated by the pope in 1076; he was forced to travel to Canossa and beg the pope for forgiveness.
Tebboune’s visit has been postponed several times and the most recent date was scheduled for late September or early October 2024.
But given increasingly tense relations between the two countries, Algiers views an official visit to France as a potentially humiliating experience. Indeed, bilateral relations between France and Algeria have become worse in recent months and have been reduced to the bare minimum. For example, on 15 December 2024, the French Ambassador, Stéphane Romatet was summoned and according to the government daily El Moudjahid, the French Ambassador was‘informed of the firm disapproval of the highest Algerian authorities in the face of the numerous French provocations and hostile acts against Algeria.’ According to Le Soir d’Algérie, the Algerian side ‘made a point of clearly identifying the origin of these malicious acts, the French DGSE (General Directorate for External Security).’ According to Le Soir d’Algérie, ‘aggressive operations and maneuvers targeting institutions of the Algerian Republic with the obvious aim of destabilizing them and seriously harming our country.’
The second episode of tension between Algiers and Paris is taking place at a time when the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, upon his return to Algeria to visit his family, was arrested on 16 November 2024 at Algiers airport and has been in detention since.
In a speech delivered before both houses of Parliament Tebboune said about Boualem Sansal and to France: ‘You are sending an impostor who does not know his identity, does not know his father and comes to say that half of Algeria belongs to another state’,
and he continued:
‘Those [in France] who say that [they] left a paradise to Algeria should know that 90% of the Algerian people were illiterate at the time of independence’. He stressed that ‘colonization [1830–1962] left Algeria in ruins (…). They must admit that they killed and massacred Algerians’.
Diplomatic confrontation with Morocco continues:
Since President Abdelmadjid Tebboune was elected in 2019, he has engaged in open confrontation with Morocco: on 24 August 2021, he told a meeting of Algeria’s High Security Council that ‘incessant hostile acts perpetrated by Morocco have meant the need for a revision in relations between the two countries and the intensification of security checks’ at the western borders with Morocco. On the same day, his Foreign Minister Ramtan Lamamra announced that his country decided to suspend diplomatic relations with Morocco with immediate effect.
Algeria’s foreign minister also accused Morocco of leading ‘a media war against Algeria, its people and its leaders’ and ‘publicly and explicitly support the Movement for Self-determination of Kabylie (MAK)’, which Algeria classifies as a ‘terrorist organisation’. Morocco’s Foreign Ministry adamantly denies these Algerian claims.
A month after cutting diplomatic relations, Algeria closed its airspace to all Moroccan civil and military aircraft. Algerians travelling to Morocco must do so via Tunisia or other countries. Indeed, thirty years ago, on 27 August 1994, following the introduction by Rabat of a visa for Algerian wishing to travel to Morocco, President Liamine Zeroual closed the border with Morocco, never to reopen it again. Since then the quarrel has become a total divorce between the two countries and Algerians no longer speak with Moroccans.
King Mohammed VI, in his speech to the nation on 30 July 2022, said he ‘deplored the tensions’ and invited Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune ‘to make wisdom prevail’ and ‘work in unison for the development of relations’ between the neighbouring countries. He added: ‘In this regard, I wish to insist, once again, that the borders separating the two brotherly Moroccan and Algerian peoples, will never stand in the way of the interaction and understanding between the two peoples’.
During the Arab League Summit in Algeria on 1–2 November 2022, Morocco’s Foreign Minister elivered an invitation to President Tebboune to make a state visit to Morocco. However, Algeria did not respond.
The main complaint by the Algerian authorities is about the establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel. On 22 December 2020 Morocco–Israel signed an agreement to establish diplomatic relations. The agreement is known as The Abraham Accords Declaration which was brokered by President Trump and signed at Rabat by Saad Dine El-Otmani for Morocco, Mr Jared Kushner for the United States of America and Mr Meir Ben-Shabbat, for Israel. Morocco is the fourth country since August 2020 to strike a deal aimed at normalising relations with Israel. The others were the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan. Egypt had already normalised relations with Israel on 26 January 1980, and Jordan on 26 October 1994. Indeed, Algeria has never criticised other Arab countries who have diplomatic and trade relations with Israel!
Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s regime will continue his nationalist discourse and reinforces Algerian propaganda by calling Morocco a Zionist state: therefore, North African analysts do not expect any change in relations between Algeria and Morocco under a Tebboune presidency, particularly as he insists on either the Independence of Saharan Republic or nothing.
In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper on 12 October 2024, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune confirmed that his country would reject any mediations to restore diplomatic relations with Morocco.
On 29 December 2024 President Tebboune delivered a speech before both houses of Parliament which was published in El Moudjahid. He said: ‘A great country like Algeria does not kneel and a great President like Tebboune will not go to Canossa’!
What is interesting is that from the beginning of Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s second term he and Algerian national media are reviving and glorifying the ideology of the former President Houari Boumediène (Mohamed Boukhrouba) who died 45 years ago and who has been completely forgotten by the former Algerian leadership and Algerian society.
Conclusion.
What can we expect from Abdelmadjid Tebboune during the next 5 years?
Power remains tightly consolidated within the executive in Algeria. The president appoints a third of the upper chamber of the legislature and can veto any legislation, overriding the president’s veto requires a three-fourths majority. Accordingly, only legislation supported by the president can proceed. As chair of the Superior Council of Magistracy, Tebboune appoints and dismisses judges. The presidency is also in control of all the regulatory bodies, including those responsible for overseeing government expenditure. The executive and Algeria’s military have been the dominant political actors since independence, and they will continue to be so in the future too.
Knowledgeable observers do not expect any change at home or with his foreign policy. Tebboune is anticipated to continue repressing his critics and galvanizing nationalists against his enemies. It is envisaged that amongst the issues will be conflict with Mali, support for Polisario and the Palestinian cause, as well as skirmishes with France, Morocco and the European Parliament as Algeria seeks the dissolution of the European Parliament’s ‘Western Sahara Intergroup’ which has existed for more than 20 years. Algeria and Polisario blame Morocco and Spanish Prime Minister for hindering the renewal of Polisario. This is a setback for Polisario and Algeria.