Algeria

Bouteflika votes with hopes for high turnout in presidential election

Article published on the 2009-04-09 Latest update 2009-04-09 10:59 TU

Algerian incumbent President Abdelaziz Bouteflika casts his ballot in Algiers on Thursday
(Photo: Reuters)

"Vote, even vote against me, but vote," said current Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika while campaigning in the run-up to Thursday's election. The vote is being boycotted by the two main opposition parties.

The opposition parties, the Rassemblement pour le Culture et la Démocratie (RCD) and the Front de Forces Socialistes (FFS) are strongest in Kabylia, where the Berber ethnic group is in the majority.

Five candidates are running against Bouteflika and are also urging people to come out and vote. The candidates have little funding and remain unknown to many.

Bouteflika took 84.99 per cent of the vote in 2004, when he was elected to his second term of office, with just under 60 per cent of eligible Algerians going to the polls.

He has promised a five-year development plan that would create three million jobs and build a million homes, this at a cost of 115 billion euros. Despite opposition criticisms, Interior Minister Nouredine Yazi Zerhouni says "the electoral system guaranteeing transparency and respect for the results of the vote" is assured.

Analyst George Joffe says "there's been a marked apathy over the whole of the election process" and that polling, already taken in secret by the authorities, indicates that "turnout in Algiers is likely to be about eight per cent and in the rest of the country around 15 per cent".

 

Joffse says the boycott by opposition parties indicates two things, "that the constitutional amendments that made the election - or rather the ability of the president to stand again possible - are extremely unpopular" and also that "nobody believes that the election will be a fair test of Algerian public opinion because so many potential candidates have been effectively excluded from standing".

The campaign has been marked by an absence of debate, Joffe says, saying that the stronghold of the presidency on the Algerian media is the major obstacle to any real debate.

On France 24 TV  Algerians vote for president