Sharjah 24 – AFP: Thousands demonstrated in Algiers on Friday, rejecting early legislative elections announced the day before, as weekly rallies by the resurgent Hirak pro-democracy movement gain momentum.
Protesters defied a coronavirus-related ban on gatherings to rally from different parts of the capital, converging on the central post office, the Hirak movement's emblematic rallying point, AFP correspondents said.
Demonstrators shouted slogans including "No elections with mafia gangs" and "a civil not a military state", a key Hirak slogan.
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Thursday issued a decree setting June 12 for early legislative elections, after dissolving parliament last month.
"To safeguard itself, the system says: legislative (elections)," one poster read Friday.
The Hirak movement broke out in February 2019 in outrage at then-president Abdelaziz Bouteflika's bid for a fifth term in office.
Tebboune has pledged that the June elections will be free of corruption and will "open the doors of parliament to young people".
A constitutional referendum in November saw record-low participation.
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