Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has won re-election in a landslide, according to official results released on Friday, but the opposition vowed to appeal saying the election was marred by fraud.
Bouteflika, who said he needed a second mandate until 2009 to firmly steer the Muslim country toward democracy and a market economy after a brutal Islamic holy war, received 83.5 percent of the votes cast, Interior Minister Noureddine Zerhouni said.
PHOTO: REUTERS
His main challenger, former Prime Minister Ali Benflis, obtained just under eight percent. The other four candidates trailed even further. The winner needed more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a run-off on April 22.
Turnout was 57.8 percent, which Zerhouni called "exceptional" compared with 46 percent in parliamentary elections in 2002.
Thursday's presidential election was seen as pivotal for the future of the energy-rich North African country after years of military-backed or one-party rule since independence from France in 1962.
Bouteflika, a 67-year-old veteran politician with a moderate stance but an authoritarian streak, became the first re-elected president since the end of the one-party state in 1989.
"For our country it is unprecedented that we'll have a stable executive elected by a wide consensus. It should get Algeria out of its crisis for good," Abdeslam Bouchoureb, a top Bouteflika campaign official, told reporters.
But opponents cried foul even before results were announced. The office of Benflis said he would launch legal appeals.
"We've had multiple reports of fraud, ballot boxes were swapped," said Soufiane Djilali, a top Benflis campaign aide. He declined to elaborate and said details of the complaints would be presented to the watchdog Constitutional Council.
The election was being watched in the West and the US, which sees Algeria, because of its recent past and geopolitical situation, as crucial in its global war on terror.
Succeeding a list of former generals as heads of state, Bouteflika has given Algeria a civilian face abroad. He has been received at the White House and restored a measure of confidence in the country, accompanied by a return of foreign investment.
Western diplomats expected the poll in the vast country of 32 million to underline its return to the international fold under Bouteflika, who has all but ended a bloody guerrilla war, much of it directed against civilians.
It flared after the military prevented a hardline Islamic party from gaining power at the ballot box 12 years ago. Many Algerians give Bouteflika credit for an emergence from this decade of violence in which the government says at least 100,000 people were killed. Human rights groups put the toll at 150,000.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese