Algeria's election: A fait accompli?

For many, even those in the media, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s re-election is a foregone conclusion.


Algerians went to the polls on Thursday and, even before the official count, most believed that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s re-election was a foregone conclusion.

Airtime usually plays a key role when analysing the coverage of elections, but the clearly ailing 77-year-old president will likely win a fourth term despite having hardly been seen or heard in public during the campaign.

Algerians are wary of instability and for many of them Bouteflika is the figure who brought an end to a brutal civil war in the 1990s.

But where does that leave the Algerian media? The landscape for journalists in 2014 is far from ideal but not nearly as bad as it once was. One private TV station has been closed for questioning Bouteflika’s re-lection and the government has been refusing visas for some foreign journalists.