Algeria condemned 70 people for electoral fraud, including three former presidential candidates.
Approximately 70 people sentenced to imprisonment in Algeria for committing election fraud. Among the convicts are three former candidates for the post of president, TASR writes according to Monday’s AFP report referring to an unnamed source from the local justice environment.
Former presidential candidates – entrepreneur Saída Neghzová, former Minister Belkási Sáhlí and very well known politician Abdelhaki Hamadi – were sent to prison for buying signatures under the presidential election of last September.
The trial and punishment
The May trial lasted nine days with them, while the prosecutor’s office asked for ten -year prison sentences and a fine of a million Algerian dinars (approximately EUR 6660).
Dozens of the remaining accused, including the three sons of Neghz, were sentenced to five to eight years in prison. They were mostly deputies of local councils, who were supposed to pay for their signatures in favor of the candidates.
Candidate rules
Neither of the three politicians mentioned in the end of the presidential election last year, in which the already reigning President Abdal Madžid Tabbún won with a great lead.
In Algeria, the candidate for the post of president must receive at least 600 signatures from elected representatives of local governments, at least 29 out of 58 provinces. Alternatively, it has a second option, with a profit of at least 50,000 signatures from eligible voters, and there must be at least 1200 in each province.
The Algerian Prosecutor’s Office announced at the beginning of August last August that 68 people were detained for charges of “buying signatures” for the three candidates.
