Sharjah 24 – AFP: Algerians vote on Saturday in local elections seen as key in President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's push to turn the page on the two-decade rule of late president Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

But despite official campaigns urging Algerians to "make their mark", the vote for municipal and provincial councils has sparked little public interest.

Observers are predicting a low turnout, as with a string of poorly-attended votes since the Hirak pro-democracy protest movement that drove Bouteflika from power in April 2019.

The North African country's rulers are trying to "impose their will despite the embarrassing results of previous elections", said analyst Mohamed Hennad.

But he said voters saw the exercise as producing "an electoral mandate stripped of any political content".

Saturday's poll will be the third national vote under Tebboune, who has vowed to reform state institutions inherited from Bouteflika, who died in September at the age of 84.

Algeria's local assemblies elect two-thirds of members of the national parliament's upper house, with the president appointing the remainder.

But while the national elections board ANIE says more than 15,000 candidates are in the running, campaigning has been muted.

Redouane Boudjemaa, a journalism professor at the University of Algiers, said the vote was simply "an attempt to clean up the facade of local councils by changing their members, to benefit the ruling class".

"Politics at the moment is limited to slogans proclaiming that the country has entered a new era, while all indicators point to the contrary," he said.

Tebboune was elected in a contentious, widely boycotted 2019 ballot months after Bouteflika stepped down under pressure from the army and vast rallies by the Hirak.