The video’s blend of drama, poetry and politics - all delivered in thick Algerian dialect - has been viewed nearly four million times. The star says that he might go to prison for the message he’s delivering, but he doesn’t care. And that message is simple - Algeria is broken, but voting in today’s elections won’t make it better.
You can watch the video by DZjoker, aka Chemseddine Lamrani, below:
Entitled “I’m not voting”, DZjoker enumerates one by one the ills that ail the north African nation: emigration, poor healthcare, low-quality education, shortage of housing, injustice, meagre social benefits, high taxes, repression and the high cost of living.
“Why do you only want to hear my voice when it’s time to vote?” DZjoker asks.
It’s message has obviously resonated in Algeria, and it’s not entirely surprising: the turnout for the last parliamentary elections, in 2012, was just 43%. Power is highly concentrated in the hands of the president, the aging and ailing Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and the perception that elections won’t change anything is widespread.
Karima, 32, told Al Jazeera that, “I could not care less. The outcome of the election has already been decided. Our votes will not be taken into account so why should I bother to go to the polls?”
“Algerians are voting in a climate of economic and political fatigue,” Dalia Ghanem-Yazbeck, a scholar at the Carnegie Middle East centre, said in a video interview posted by the think tank. “What’s at stake is not really the winner - we’re almost sure who is going to win - but only the turnout rate.”
Watch her whole interview below:
A report from the Carter Centre, an American non-profit, said of the 2012 elections that, “gaps in the transparency safeguards for the voting, counting, and tabulation processes—and the remarkable absence of transparency in the reporting of results—undermined confidence in the declared results.”
Algeria has been suffering economically, and the government has imposed austerity measures in the wake of the drop in oil prices. Corruption is a big problem in the country, which was given just 34 points out of 100 by watchdog Transparency International.
DZjoker expounds problems faced by poor Algerians. He bemoans the government’s decision to spend more than a billion Euros on a giant mosque when basic healthcare is poor throughout the country. “You call me ignorant, but you didn’t give me a good education,” he says, before pointing out the children of the elite study abroad.
The rich get away with their crimes, homelessness is rife, and salaries are not enough to feed the family, he says.
It’s a daring act of expression in a country known for locking up government critics - but DZjoker says he felt he just had to say something. “I love my country, I want to live here - don’t make me want to leave.”
