ALGIERS: A pro-government Algerian television channel showed people streaming into a provincial polling station on Sunday for a constitutional referendum backed by the country’s rulers, but on the streets of the capital there was less enthusiasm to vote.
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and the powerful military have pushed the changes to the constitution as a way to turn the page on last year’s popular unrest.
It has set the referendum up as a test of strength with the leaderless opposition “Hirak” protest movement, which brought thousands of people onto the streets every week last year and which rejects the proposed constitutional reform as a sham.
Tebboune, who has been in hospital in Germany since last week after saying aides had tested positive for COVID-19, has pushed for a big turnout to show support for his strategy to end unrest.
Ennahar channel, which supports the…
