ALGIERS, May 18: Algeria's ruling coalition won a reduced majority in a parliamentary election shunned by voters who believed it offered few answers to their everyday problems.
Announcing the results on Friday, Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said poor participation and a large number of spoiled ballots in Thursday's poll had led to the lowest ever turnout of 35 per cent.
“It demonstrates that citizens expect politics to adapt more concretely and more convincingly to changes in Algerian society.
The people have shown they are demanding,” he said.
The National Liberation Front (FLN) won 136 seats, the pro-business Rally for National Democracy (RND) 61, and the moderate Islamist Movement for Society (MSP) and Peace 52.
They ran on promises to deliver more jobs and state-subsidised homes, an effort most Algerians say is unfolding far too slowly despite a bonanza from oil exports.
The vote was the third assembly election since an Islamist revolt erupted after the cancellation of polls in 1992 which a now-outlawed Muslim fundamentalist party was poised to win. Up to 200,000 people have been killed in violence since then.
The fighting has reduced dramatically in recent years, but sputters on. A triple bombing claimed by Al Qaeda killed 33 in Algiers on April 11. One policeman was killed when two small bombs exploded in the eastern city of Constantine on Wednesday.
Turnout in the voting to a new 389-seat lower house of parliament for the next five years was 35 per cent, compared with 46 per cent in the last poll in 2002, a record low since the advent of multi-party general elections in 1991.
Of 6.6 million votes cast, 961,000 or 14.5 per cent were spoiled. Zerhouni suggested he saw that as a protest vote.
“The people wanted to vote anyway, but it shows also that they were not happy with the current situation,” he said.
Algeria has built up $80 billion in foreign reserves thanks to high oil prices. But the non-energy sector which provides most jobs, remains dominated by inefficient, state firms.
Social ills are still Algerians' main worry, with joblessness among adults under 30 at a huge 75 per cent.
Political analyst Nacer Mehal said: “The low turnout reflects the gap between politics and people.”
The presidency is the most powerful office of state and Algerians say it is the incumbent, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, not parliament who holds the key to a better future.
The coalition's total number of seats fell to 249 from 284, all of it accounted for by a drop in the vote for the FLN, which led the 1954-62 guerilla war for independence from France and governed during the 1962-1989 period of one-party rule.
The FLN is lead by Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem, a moderate
Islamist and close ally of Bouteflika.
Belkhadem said his priority in the new parliament was to change the constitution to boost the president's role and to reform the political system to reduce the number of parties to four or five major ones, eliminating the many small parties.
He did not elaborate. The National Liberation Front last year proposed extending the presidential mandate from five to seven years and abrogating the two-term limit. Under the current constitution, the president's powers are already formidable. But presidents are limited to two five-year mandates.
Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem's second and final mandate ends in 2009.
The main opposition becomes the Workers' Party (PT), a Trotskyite group which won 26 seats. It opposes privatisation.—Reuters
