Algiers
AlgiersiStock

Algeria will hold a presidential election on December 12, eight months following the resignation of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, AFP reported on Sunday.

"I have decided... that the date of the presidential election will be Thursday, December 12," said Algeria’s interim president Abdelkader Bensalah, who is precluded from standing himself, in a televised address to the nation.

The announcement comes after army chief General Ahmed Gaid Salah, seen as Algeria's strongman since the fall of the ailing Bouteflika, insisted that polls be held by the end of 2019, despite ongoing protests demanding the creation of new institutions ahead of any elections.

Bouteflika submitted his resignation last April following mass protests calling on him to step down.

On Friday, however, Algerian protesters returned to the streets after parliament passed bills paving the way for the announcement of elections, according to AFP.

Demonstrators are demanding key regime figures step down and an overhaul of political institutions before any polls, arguing an election under the current framework would only reinforce the status quo.

Gaid Salah earlier this month called for an electoral college to be summoned on September 15 so as to conduct an election within 90 days, in mid-December.

Last week, parliament passed two bills that would facilitate the announcement of a vote.

Presidential polls originally planned for July 4 were postponed due to a lack of viable candidates, plunging the country into a constitutional crisis as the 90-day mandate for Bensalah expired in early July.

The army's high command has rejected any solution to the crisis other than presidential elections "in the shortest possible time".

Algeria was one of the countries to be hit by protests during the so-called “Arab Spring” in 2011, and hundreds were arrested by riot police as they called for the Bouteflika’s resignation.

Bouteflika subsequently lifted a state of emergency that was imposed in 1992, as Islamist militants waged war over the government's decision to ignore elections that gave a majority to a Muslim party.