HIBAPRESS – Jerada
Just days after the legislative elections were held in the local constituency of Jerada, which took place on September 23, 2026, a question has begun to be raised in local circles about the possibility of voters returning to the ballot boxes, given the law's provision for appealing results before the Constitutional Court.
This question, while legally premature, finds its justification in the specific electoral path Jerada's constituency has witnessed in past years, having previously experienced the annulment of legislative election results and partial elections on two occasions. This makes the post-September 23 election period a focal point of local attention and monitoring.
The September 23 election yielded close results in part of the competition, with the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) leading with 8790 votes, followed by the Independence Party in second place with 6187 votes, and the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) coming in third with 6157 votes, a mere 30 votes behind second place, according to the published final results. The number of voters was 38,841 out of 100,419 registered voters, with a turnout rate of 38.68 percent.
This closeness in votes, along with the nature of the competition witnessed in the constituency, means that attention in the upcoming phase will be directed towards the legal proceedings of the results. However, this does not, in itself, imply that there is an appeal or that new elections are officially on the table.
As of now, there is no evidence to support a decision to annul the election results in Jerada, nor should talk of potential appeals be treated as an announcement of actual appeals. The electoral process has entered, after the announcement of results, a legal phase that allows concerned parties to submit their appeals within the stipulated deadlines. The resolution of any electoral dispute rests with the Constitutional Court.
The Organic Law relating to the Constitutional Court stipulates that the deadline for appealing the election of members of Parliament extends to thirty days following the date of the announcement of the election results. Furthermore, if a dispute is brought before the court, it does not treat the appeal as an automatic cause for annulling the elections. Instead, it examines the objections, facts, and arguments presented, and their impact on the election outcome. The court can, as stipulated by law, reject the appeal, declare it inadmissible, or, if warranted, annul the contested election or correct the arithmetical results and legally declare the winner.
The sensitivity of this process is amplified in Jerada given the precedents the constituency has witnessed. The results of the 2016 legislative elections were previously annulled, and partial elections were held in January 2018. The same occurred again after the September 8, 2021 elections, when a decision was issued to annul the election of two members from the constituency, leading to partial elections held in September 2022.
These precedents make the current circulating question understandable, but they do not necessarily mean that the same scenario will be repeated in the 2026 elections. Each electoral process has its own facts and circumstances, and each appeal is subject to independent legal and judicial assessment.
Pending the expiry of the legal deadlines for appeals, the September 23 results remain the adopted results, and there can be no talk of new elections as a decided or even confirmed matter. The gap between the possibility of an appeal and the annulment of an election is a legal and judicial process that may begin with the submission of a petition, then undergo review by the Constitutional Court, before a final decision is issued.
Therefore, the question that arises in Jerada in the coming days is not whether the elections will be repeated, but rather whether the September 23 results will face appeals before the Constitutional Court, and if they are filed, will they contain sufficient grounds and facts that could influence the election outcome?
The answer will not be determined by speculation or political discussions, but rather by what the legal deadlines reveal and what appeals may be presented to the Constitutional Court, followed by the decisions it issues. Until this picture becomes clear, the return of Jerada to the ballot boxes remains merely a possibility, nothing more.
