Algeria’s president Friday signed the country’s new constitution into law, his office said, after the document was approved in a November referendum on record low turnout as its leader received treatment abroad for COVID-19.
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who returned to Algeria this week after two months in Germany, had promoted the new constitution as the “cornerstone of the new Algeria,” as he sought to turn the page on the long-running Hirak mass protest movement.
For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
But the document received the backing of less than 15 percent of the electorate, in a November vote overshadowed by the novel coronavirus pandemic and following Hirak calls for a boycott.
The Hirak first launched vast street demonstrations in early 2019 to oppose then-president Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s bid for a fifth term in office.
Following his resignation that April, the Hirak kept up the pressure to demand a full overhaul of the ruling system in place since the North African country’s 1962 independence from France.
The new constitution was pitched as responding to the demands of the Hirak, but keeps in place Algeria’s presidential regime and expands the powers of the army, a central pillar of the state.
Tebboune, 75, on Thursday approved Algeria’s 2021 budget and is hoping to launch a vaccination campaign against the novel coronavirus, using the Sputnik V jab produced by its Russian ally, as early as this month.
Read more:
Vehicle crash in Algeria kills 20 people, injures 11
Coronavirus: Algeria president returns from COVID-19 treatment in Germany
-
Vehicle crash in Algeria kills 20 people, injures 11
Twenty people were killed on Thursday in Algeria when a vehicle carrying mainly African nationals overturned in the south of the country, the civil ... North Africa -
Coronavirus: Algeria president returns from COVID-19 treatment in Germany
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune returned to Algeria on Tuesday and appeared on television after a two-month absence in Germany, where he received ... Coronavirus -
Algeria’s army seizes nearly $100,000 militants’ ransom cash
Algeria’s army has retrieved a “slice of the ransom” cash paid out to free hostages held by “terrorist groups” in the troubled Sahel region, the ... North Africa