Description of Electoral System:

(Courtesy of IFES elction guide)

President is elected by popular vote to serve a 4-year term. In National People's Assembly (Al-Majlis Ech-Chaabi Al-Watani) 389 members are elected by popular vote to serve a 5-year term. In Council of Nations (Senate) 144 members are elected
to serve a 5-year term One-third of the members appointed by the president, two-thirds elected by indirect vote; members serve six-year terms; the constitution requires half the council to be renewed every three years

Electoral systems snapshot

(Courtesy of International IDEA)

*Click on links for term definitions

WANT MORE ELECTION RELATED STATS FOR ALGERIA? Go to "election databases" on the left-hand menu of this page OR comparative data on the right-hand menu and choose your area of interest.

Local Elections: 29 November 2007

Algeria's ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) won the local elections on a high turnout of 43 percent, despite the heavy rains and flooding which has battered the north of Algeria. Read articles on the start of elections and results.

Most recent election

(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

Legislative elections were held in Algeria on 17 May 2007. 24 political parties and around 100 independent lists with a total of more than 12,000 candidates competed for the 389 seats in the National People's Assembly.

DID YOU KNOW?                                                                               Current Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is a veteran of the War of Independence from France

At 35% of the 18.7 million voters, the turnout was the lowest in Algerian history. Several political organisations had called on their supporters to boycott these elections. These political groups claimed that the elections were consistently rigged by the government, and that participation merely lent a fundamentally corrupt process undeserved legitimacy.

The only notable remaining armed group in Algeria, the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb, issued a video calling participation in the elections "a great sin", adding its voice to the boycott calls. Tight security measures were implemented to protect the elections; however, two bombs exploded in Constantine the day before the election, killing a police officer and wounding five others (Bombings on eve of Algeria election, Al Jazeera English, 16 May 2007).

The Constitutional Council confirmed the results of the election, with slight changes to the voter turn-out rate and number of seats won by some parties, on May 21. It rejected appeals regarding the election on May 30. The greatest winner of the election was the National Liberation Front (FLN), receiving 23% of the votes cast and 136 out of the 389 seats.