Disillusioned young people turn backs on the ballot box

The president expected to win Algeria's election, but a disaffected generation's refusal to vote may undermine the credibility of his mandate.

Algerians walk past a campaign poster promoting the president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who is standing for re-election. Algerians disillusioned by high unemployment and ossified politics are widely expected to boycott tomorrow's vote.Show less

ALGIERS // Tomorrow Abdeslam Alilou will skip presidential elections and go, as he always does, to a plywood shack in the heart of Algiers to play dominoes and smoke hashish with his friends. "I smoke to be calm," said Mr Alilou, who is 30 and unemployed. "I smoke because there's nothing else." Algeria's president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, is calling on young Algerians like Mr Alilou, who form the bulk of voters, to support his bid for re-election to a controversial third term. But years of chronic unemployment, rising costs of living and disillusionment with their country's politics have turned a generation off of elections altogether. Mr Bouteflika is widely expected to win the contest, but is racing to avoid a predicted low voter turnout that would sap credibility from his mandate. "If the Algerian people want to prove that they care about their country's politics, let them say it clearly on April 9," Mr Bouteflika told his final campaign rally on Monday, geared towards young people. Attendees at the rally burst regularly into applause and cheering. But at a national level, Mr Bouteflika is facing a tougher crowd. "The political system leaves young people no means of expressing themselves," said Hocine Zehouane, president of the Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights. "They no longer believe in anything." In November, Algeria's parliament lifted presidential term limits, a move seen by many as a manoeuvre to allow Mr Bouteflika to keep his job. The president's supporters argue that no one matches his ability to ensure order in a country struggling with high unemployment, a housing crisis and an Islamic insurgency left over from a devastating civil war that killed about 150,000 in the 1990s. But opposition parties have accused Mr Bouteflika of eroding Algerian democracy and seeking to become president for life. One major rival after another has renounced tomorrow's election by refusing to take part in it and calling for a boycott, leaving Mr Bouteflika virtually unchallenged. "There has never been an opposition that could assert itself," said George Joffe, director of the Centre for North African Studies at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. "The boycott is to demonstrate that opposition parties are in tune with people." Critics of the government have predicted that disillusionment will keep many Algerians home on polling day, as happened in legislative elections in 2007. Official figures put voter turnout then at just 35 per cent - a record low. Keen to avoid a repeat, Mr Bouteflika has crisscrossed Algeria in recent weeks to make stump speeches, while his campaign team has covered towns with posters bearing his image and mobilised the block of parties that support him. "But whether it can mobilise significantly more than 50 per cent of voters is an open question," said Hugh Roberts, an expert on Algeria and the former director of the North Africa Project at International Crisis Group, a think-tank in Brussels. Since his first election as president in 1999, Mr Bouteflika has won praise for re-establishing the role of civilian leaders following military dominance after civil war broke out in 1992. He was re-elected in a landslide in 2004 on pledges to bring peace to Algeria through a programme of amnesties for militants. But for many Algerians, Mr Bouteflika is increasingly identified with ossified politics and elusive prosperity. The country's booming hydrocarbons industry has not eased an unemployment rate that the government puts at 13 per cent, while government targets to produce one million new jobs and housing units have so far not been met. Mr Bouteflika has promised to spend US$150 billion (Dh550bn) of surplus oil revenues on development. That sounds good to young people like Naramine Ouahabi, 19, a student who attended Mr Bouteflika's rally on Monday at a stadium outside Algiers. "I'm definitely voting Bouteflika," said Ms Ouahabi, who is pursuing a degree in international trade. "I'm confident he'll ensure that jobs are created." Unemployment has soared among Algerian youth in recent years, pushing increasing numbers into drug use and emigration, said Mr Zehouane, from the Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights. "Algeria has given me nothing, so I've never voted," said Hocine, 28, a rally attendee who slipped illegally into France eight years ago seeking work and did not wish to give his surname. "But if Bouteflika's programme seems sound, I may vote for him." "In 10 years, not one of you will be idling in bed," Mr Bouteflika told the packed stadium, sending up a burst of cheering and whistles. But at their shack in Algiers, Abdeslam Alilou and his friends are unimpressed. "He's already had 10 years," Mr Alilou said. "Now it's too late." Outside, the fading light of the sun washed over the crumbling houses down the hill and, on the heights above, the gleaming presidential palace. The men, most unemployed like Mr Alilou, clacked dominoes on to a table and talked of the things they do not have - health insurance, wives, paycheques - pausing to take drags on a hashish cigarette. Mr Alilou lives with his mother, brother and niece in a matchbox apartment nearby, while his sister lives in Switzerland. Four years ago he visited her. "When I was there, for the first time I didn't smoke," he said. "Because for the first time I felt happy." [e-mail]