Algerian president's party dominates election

Algiers Algeria's historical ruling party won 220 of the 462 seats up for grabs in the parliamentary polls while moderate Islamists suffered a setback, according to official results released Friday.

The National Liberation Front improved its share of power from 136 to 220 seats in the national assembly, which was enlarged from 389 to 462, Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said at a press conference.

An alliance of Islamist parties accused authorities yesterday of widespread fraud as they finished third with a spokesman suggesting unrest could ensue.

The Islamist Green Algeria Alliance won 48 seats in the parliament.

Algeria voted for a new parliament Thursday, in an election authorities billed as a response to the pro-democracy movements sweeping the Arab region. Abdur Razak Mukri, a spokesman for the alliance, along with alliance member Taifour Farouq said that the results the parties are seeing from the Interior Ministry differ dramatically from those seen by the alliance's observers.

He told reporters in Algiers that "there is a process of fraud on a centralized level to change the results that is putting the country in danger."

Fears of violence

He blamed President Abdul Aziz Bouteflika, and added, "we are not responsible for what could happen" as a result of the alleged fraud.

He did not elaborate on the veiled reference to possible unrest. Algeria plunged into a decade of insurgency after the army cancelled elections 20 years ago an Islamist party was slated to win.

The country has also suffered sporadic attacks by the North Africa branch of Al Qaida in a mountainous region east of the capital. There were reports of a few isolated attacks, but no fatalities, on election day.

Bouteflika has spent the past several months urging Algerians to come out and vote, alternating promises of bold post-election reforms.

Turnout hovered at 30 per cent in major cities, such as the capital, Algiers, but the government announced that the final rate of participation for inside and outside the country was 42.9 per cent of the 21.6 million registered voters.

Polls not a clean break from the past

The Arab Spring barely touched Algeria but did prompt calls for the country to embrace more democracy and to renew an establishment that has run the energy exporter's affairs without interruption for half a century.

Algeria's rulers responded by promising people an ‘Algerian Spring' — a managed process of reform, with Thursday's election as the first step. It was clear the election was not a clean break from the past. More than half of eligible voters abstained, with many saying they had no faith there would be real change, and some in the opposition alleged the vote had been rigged.

— Reuters