Will Algerians Boycott a Sham Election?
Algeria’s President Bouteflika will undoubtedly be elected to a third term on April 9 in elections expected to be rigged in his favor. But Ahmed Aghrout, a research fellow at the University of Salford in the UK, and Yahia H. Zoubir, professor of international relations at EUROMED Management school in France, say the regime’s “biggest fear” is a mass boycott by disgruntled Algerian citizens.
That’s interesting fear. I’m not aware of any instances where election boycotts were actually successful. Most of the time they just seem to take the effort out of stealing the election. If I’m wrong, I’d certainly be interested in counter examples.