Abdelmajid Tebboune was sworn in on Tuesday for a second term as Algeria’s president, in a ceremony at the People’s Palace on the west coast of the capital. It comes after the country’s constitutional court confirmed his election win on Saturday.
According to the country’s election authority, Tebboune secured 7.7 million votes, which equates to 84.3 percent of the vote. It’s a significantly higher figure than his 2019 win with 58 percent of the vote, in which the election had an abstention rate of just over 46 percent. But the total is lower than this year’s initial result, that had been contested by two of Tebboune’s opponents.
The 78 year-old has been criticised over his human rights record since coming to power. According to Amnesty Internaitonal, under his rule, authorities in the country have ‘maintained their zero-tolerance approach to dissenting opinions’, and ‘repression of civic space’.