ALGIERS, May 31: Algeria’s former sole political party, the National Liberation Front (FLN), won an absolute majority in Thursday’s legislative elections that were marked by widespread malaise and the lowest turnout in 40 years.

The FLN, which ruled the north African country singlehandedly from independence in 1962 until 1991, won 199 seats in the 389-seat national assembly, Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni said.

The result marks the FLN’s return to Algeria’s political centre stage, with a three-fold increase in its representation in the national assembly, where it won 64 seats in the last elections, in 1997.

Its resounding win knocked one of its partners in the outgoing ruling coalition, the National Democratic Rally (RND), out of its predominant position in parliament.

The RND, which had 155 seats in the outgoing assembly, garnered under a third of its previous score, winning 48 seats in Thursday’s vote.

That result indicated a general malaise among voters, less than half of whom bothered to even cast their ballot.

Just over 46 per cent of the 18 million Algerians eligible to vote, both resident in the country and overseas, voted, according to Zerhouni, making for the lowest turnout since independence.

On Thursday, the interior ministry said turnout had been around 47.5 percent, but that figure did not include expatriate voters.

Analysts said that by refusing to vote, Algeria’s electorate was marking its rejection of a political system that has mired the country in economic hardship and seen it ravaged by a decade-long civil war which has claimed some 150,000 lives.—AFP