[ 2012-05-12 ]

Algeria Islamists reel from election fiasco
ALGIERS (AFP) - Algeria's Islamists were reeling
Saturday from a stinging setback in legislative
polls which saw the ruling party come out on top,
resisting the Arab Spring's tide of democratic
change.

The regime argued that the results showed
Algerians' desire for stability, at a time when
regime change was bringing chaos to other
countries, and outright rejection of Islamism,
whose rise 20 years ago led to civil war.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's National
Liberation Front (FLN) won 220 out of 462 seats up
for grabs in Thursday's legislative elections,
improving on its share in the outgoing national
assembly.

The seven Islamist parties contesting the polls
could only manage a combined 59 seats, a major
setback after their predictions of victory during
the campaign.

The National Rally for Democracy (RND) of Prime
Minister Ahmed Ouyahia, a nationalist party close
to the military and loyal to Bouteflika, came
second with 68 seats, compared to 62 in the
outgoing house.

While the results largely maintain the status quo,
one notable change was the number of elected
women, which rose to 145 from seven in the
outgoing assembly following the introduction of
quotas.

Algeria's outgoing governing coalition included
the FLN, the RND and the largest of the legal
Islamist parties, the Movement of Society for
Peace.

Friday's provisional results, which have yet to be
confirmed by the constitutional council, mean the
FLN and the RND could form a majority without the
Islamists.

"We'd already experienced Islamism, nobody has
forgotten this in Algeria... Voters were looking
for security, stability," political analyst
Nourredine Hakiki said.

Green Algeria, a three-party Islamist alliance,
garnered a paltry 48 seats and charged widespread
fraud.

"There has been large-scale manipulation of the
real results announced in the regions, an
irrational exaggeration of these results to favour
the administration parties," it said in a
statement.

It warned it would take measures in protest.

In the wake of the popular revolts that became
known as the Arab Spring, moderate Islamist
parties recorded electoral victories in Tunisia,
Egypt and Morocco.

Ouyahia argued that the Arab Spring was hardly an
attractive scenario, calling it a "plague" that
had resulted in "the colonisation of Iraq, the
destruction of Libya, the partition of Sudan and
the weakening of Egypt."

Turnout had been expected to be low after a
campaign that produced no new faces and failed to
draw crowds.

But Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia announced a
"remarkable" rate of 42.36 percent which he said
confirmed Algeria's democratic credentials.

Many Algerians and observers had predicted that
ever deeper mistrust, especially among the
country's majority of young people, could lead to
an even worse turnout than the historical low of
35 percent recorded in 2007.

The opposition Rally for Culture and Democracy,
which chose to boycott this election, claimed the
announced turnout was fraudulent and that the real
figure "did not exceed 18 percent."

The Socialist Forces Front, Algeria's oldest
opposition party, garnered only 21 seats and also
cried foul, charged the regime has used the
election "only to consolidate its power".

Some 500 foreign observers brought in by
Bouteflika to monitor the vote reported only minor
hiccups but they were denied access to the
national electoral roll, which grew by four
million voters since 2007.

Dozens of complaints were filed to the electoral
commission however and observers were expected to
release more detailed assessments on Saturday and
Sunday.

Source - AFP

... go Back