ALGIERS, July 31 (Xinhua) -- Algeria's Constitutional Court on Wednesday approved three candidates for presidential elections scheduled for Sept. 7.
The approved candidates are the incumbent President Abdelmadjid Tebboune running as an independent, head of the Movement of Society for Peace Abdelaali Hassani Cherif and Secretary General of the Socialist Forces Front Youcef Aouchiche, the court said in a statement.
Last Thursday, the National Independent Authority for Elections (ANIE) temporarily validated the candidacy requests of these three individuals while rejecting 13 other applications. ANIE noted that it was up to the Constitutional Court to approve the candidate requests and review appeals of the rejected applications.
Under Algeria's electoral law, any candidate wishing to run for president must collect either 600 individual signatures from elected members of municipal, provincial, or parliamentary councils, or at least 50,000 signatures from eligible voters across at least 29 provinces, with a minimum of 1,200 signatures in each province.
Tebboune won his first presidential term in the elections held on Dec. 12, 2019, under exceptional circumstances following a political crisis. This crisis stemmed from large popular protests that forced the resignation of the late President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in April 2019.
More than 26 million Algerians, out of a population exceeding 45 million, are eligible to vote. ■
