Algiers: Algeria kicked off 20 days of campaigning yesterday for May 10 parliamentary elections, amid fears of voter apathy in a country where many believe real power rests in the hands of a military elite.
It is Algeria's first election since the demonstrations and uprisings of the Arab Spring swept the region and prompted the president to put forward a series of reforms.
"We cannot emphasise enough the importance of massive participation in the May 10 elections for a supreme legislative body that is one of the grand institutions of the republic," President Abdul Aziz Bouteflika said in a message to the country on Saturday.
There is widespread cynicism over politics in the oil and gas rich North African country, where despite regular presidential and parliamentary elections, it is believed a small coterie of influential generals are in control. Though the widespread popular uprisings never took off in Algeria, there are regular small-scale daily protests over economic issues, such as lack of housing or utilities.
‘Exception'
The election will see 42 political parties competing for 389 seats, but the main contest is expected to be between two government-linked political parties and an alliance of three Islamist parties.
While Islamist political parties have dominated post-Arab Spring elections in neighbouring Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt, Algeria's leaders have maintained their country will be an exception. The last time an Islamist party was poised to win parliamentary elections here was in 1992, prompting a military coup that sparked off a civil war between security forces and Islamist militants. Some 200,000 people died.
