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FLN retains power but loses seats in Algerian elections

The long-dominant National Liberation Front (FLN) party lost more than 65 seats in Algeria's parliamentary elections but kept its its grip on power in a vote with a record low abstention rate, the country's interior minister said yesterday.

There were 18.7 million eligible voters, but turnout was at 36.5 percent, Algerian Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said.

It was 10 points lower than the poor showing in parliamentary elections in 2002, he said.

FLN took 136 seats in the 389-seat lower house for a total loss of 67 seats.

FLN allies gain

However, two FLN-allied parties, one a moderate Islamist party, gained seats. Together, the three parties make up an alliance backing Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

More than 15,000 security officers deployed for the vote around Algiers and in four towns that have served as havens for Islamic extremists.

Suicide bombings

Balloting came five weeks after two suicide bombings -- one at the office of Algerian Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem -- killed 30 people in and around the capital.

A bombing in the eastern city of Constantine that killed a police officer a day before the vote was an effort "to disturb the advance of the democratic process," Zerhouni said.

The interior minister also said incidents of fraud were "noted in certain polling stations."

Lackluster campaigns

The election follows lackluster campaigns that failed to address issues rankling Algerians, few of whom profit from the country's gas and oil riches.

Some candidates were forced to cancel appearances because not enough people showed up, local newspapers reported.

Elections in Algeria have been tense since the army canceled the North African country's first multiparty vote for parliament in 1992, blocking an expected victory by the Muslim fundamentalist party Islamic Salvation Front, which is now banned.

Insugency

The move unleashed an insurgency that ravaged the country in the 1990s that killed up to an estimated 200,000 people.

Huge security operations and Bouteflika's national reconciliation plan offering amnesty to insurgents who lay down their arms have failed to stamp out sporadic violence.

A hold-out insurgency group, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, formally allied with al-Qaeda and changed its name to al-Qaeda in North Africa at the start of this year.

The group claimed responsibility for double suicide attacks on April 11 on the prime minister's office and a police station.
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