ALGERIA: President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is on course for third term despite voter apathy

Record ID: 573542

  • Title: ALGERIA: President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is on course for third term despite voter apathy
  • Date: 9th April 2009
  • Summary: ALGIERS, ALGERIA (APRIL 9, 2009) (REUTERS) POLLING STATION PAPERS BEING COLLECTED BALLOT BOX BEING UNLOCKED BALLOT BOX BEING OPENED AND EMPTIED ON THE TABLE VARIOUS OF VOTES BEING COLLECTED ELECTORAL LIST / PILES OF VOTES ON TABLE VARIOUS OF BALLOT PAPERS BEING OPENED AND COUNTED BALLOT PAPERS SHOWING PRESIDENT ABDELAZIZ BOUTEFLIKA VARIOUS OF CANDIDATES OF BALLOT PAPERS VOTES FOR BOUTEFLIKA BEING COUNTED VOTES FOR FEMALE CANDIDATE LOUISA HANOUNE BEING COUNTED VARIOUS OF VOTES BEING RECORDED ON A PAPER WITH A CROSS VARIOUS VIEWS OF BAY OF ALGIERS BY NIGHT
  • Embargoed: 24th April 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Algeria
  • Country: Algeria
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA72TH7MOUUOTV3EB87QM2HODDA
  • Story Text: Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was on course for a resounding election win on Thursday (April 9) after official turnout figures indicated a limited response to opposition calls for a boycott.
    Victory for Bouteflika, a 72-year-old veteran of Algeria's war for independence from France, was never in doubt but many analysts predicted a low turnout would harm the president's legitimacy in the eyes of some of Algeria's 34 million people.
    Some of Bouteflika's opponents, including the leader of al Qaeda's North African wing, urged people to stay at home, tapping into a sense among some voters that the election will do nothing to relieve widespread poverty and joblessness.
    Polling stations closed at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT) in the vast energy-producing country, which lies across the Mediterranean from the European Union, and the Interior Ministry is expected to announce the first results early on Friday.
    Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said that as of 6 p.m.,
    18 percent of voters had cast their ballots -- exceeding the Bouteflika campaign's target of matching the 58.1 percent turnout at the last presidential election.
    Algerian lawmakers cleared the way for Bouteflika to stand for a third term last year by abolishing term limits. Critics said that could allow him to serve as president for life.
    Bouteflika's ability to retain the support of Algeria's people matters to the outside world: his OPEC-member country has the world's 15th biggest oil reserves and accounts for 20 percent of the EU's gas imports.
    European governments fear renewed conflict or economic collapse could unleash a flood of illegal migrants into the European Union, while the United States says it needs the support of Bouteflika's government in its global fight against al Qaeda.
    Supporters say Bouteflika deserves credit for steering Africa's second largest country back to stability after the government and Islamists fought a civil conflict that killed an estimated 150,000 people in the 1990s.
    But large sections of the population are disillusioned with the political process and analysts say that helps feed the low-level Islamist insurgency still rumbling on in Algeria.
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