ALGERIA: RULING COALITION WINS GENERAL ELECTION

AKI ^ | 5/18/07

[Valin]

Algiers, 18 May (AKI) - Algeria's government coalition won as expected parliamentary elections Thursday marked by exeptionally poor turnout, Algerian interior minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni announced Friday. The National Liberation Front (FLN) won 136 seats in the 389-strong National People's Assembly, the Rally for National Democracy (RND) won 61 and the moderate Islamic Movement for Society (MSP) won 52. Only 35.5 percent of Algeria's 18.8 million eligible voters cast their ballots Thursday, down from 46 percent in 2002.

The three parties support president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who since 1999 has controlled North Africa's biggest nation. The presidency is the most powerful office of state in Algeria, a major oil and gas exporter.

Presidential elections are not scheduled before 2009, and although Bouteflika cannot run for the third time analysts have not ruled out a constitutional amendemnt enabling him to seek another term.

The vote took place at a time of rising violence in Algeria, which was torn by a civil war in the 1990s, following the alliance forged last year between a local Salafite terror group and al-Qaeda.

Last month, on 11 April, the new group, the Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb, claimed responisibility for suicide bomb attacks in Algiers which killed 33 people.

The group called this week for a boycott of elections.

In the 1990s Algeria was wracked by a brutal civil war in which an estimated 200,000 people died. The war started in 1992 when military-backed authorities annulled a general election that an Islamist political party, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), was poised to win.

[Valin]

FACTBOX-Main facts on Algerian assembly elections
Tue 15 May 2007, 9:26 GMT

http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL15616457.html

May 15 (Reuters) - Algeria, Africa’s second-largest country and a big supplier of oil and gas to North America and Europe, holds parliamentary polls on Thursday with independents and 24 political parties competing for 389 seats.

Up to 18 million eligible voters from the 33 million population will choose the assembly, to last five years, from 12,229 candidates. Voting opens at 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) and closes at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT). Final results are expected on Friday.

PARTIES TAKING PART

* National Liberation Front (FLN), which governed during the 1962-1989 period of one-party rule, is led by Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem, a close ally of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. The conservative, statist FLN won 199 seats in the last 2002 polls and is expected to keep control of the assembly. Along with the RND and the MSP (see below), it belongs to a tripartite governing coalition.

* National Rally for Democracy (RND), led by former prime minister Ahmed Ouyahia, has 47 seats in the current parliament. Ouyahia is the most pro-business party leader but also expresses strong support for Bouteflika, who replaced him with Belkhadem in a government reshuffle last year.

* The Movement of Society for Peace (MSP), a moderate Islamist party, whose leader Bouguerra Soltani holds the post of state minister in the government. It won 38 seats in the 2002 polls.

* El Islah, the main opposition Islamist party, won 43 seats in the last polls. But it is now divided and not expected to do well. Party chief Abdallah Djaballah, a respected senior Islamist, was recently declared by the government to no longer be Islah’s leader due to what it called his failings in his management of the party. He has called for a boycott, while a rival will now lead the party into the polls.

* Workers’ Party (PT), a Trotskyite party, is led by Louisa Hanoune, who in the 2004 presidential election became the first Algerian woman to run for the office. She opposes privatisation of state firms. Her party has 21 seats.

* Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD), a secularist party which has its main power base in the Berber-speaking Kabylie region. Party leader Said Sadi was a presidential candidate in 2004. RCD won 19 seats in 1997 elections. It boycotted the 2002 polls.

PARTIES NOT TAKING PART

* The Socialist Forces Front (FFS) is boycotting the polls, saying they are unlikely to be transparent and parliament serves little purpose. The secular FFS, the main political force in the northeastern Berber-speaking Kabylie region, also boycotted the last legislative elections in 2002.

* Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), once the main vehicle of Islamists’ political ambitions, was tipped to win legislative elections in 1992 but the then military-backed authorities, fearing an Iran-style revolution, scrapped the polls and banned the FIS. Up to 200,000 people are estimated to have been killed in subsequent political bloodshed.