Fraud charges and attacks tarnish landslide in Algeria

Riots at polling stations, terrorist attacks and accusations of electoral fraud tarnish Abdelaziz Bouteflika's election win.

Abdelaziz Bouteflika waves to supporters after sweeping to an election victory with just over 90 per cent of the vote.

ALGIERS // Flattening his rivals and defying his critics, the Algerian president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, steamrolled to victory in elections last week with just over 90 per cent of the vote, according to official figures. Now comes the hard part. Riots on Thursday at several polling stations, a spatter of terrorist attacks and accusations of massive electoral fraud underline the challenges Mr Bouteflika faces as he begins his third five-year term.

Since he was first elected in 1999, Mr Bouteflika, 72, has won praise for steering Algeria out of devastating civil war that killed some 150,000. But high unemployment, rising costs of living and disillusionment with their country's politics have alienated a generation of young Algerians. Meanwhile, despite a plan approved by referendum in 2005 to move past the civil war by offering amnesty to some Islamist militants, a small hard-core group of fighters has since allied with al Qa'eda and continues to stage bombings, mainly against government forces.

"There's still an irreducible element of terrorism in certain parts of the country and growing disaffection, particularly among youth," said George Joffe, the director of the Centre for North Africa Studies at Cambridge University. The country's booming hydrocarbons industry has not eased high unemployment, while government has so far failed to fulfil pledges to create one million new jobs and housing units.

Most of Algeria's exports are hydrocarbons, which allowed the country to stockpile cash last year as oil prices soared past $140 a barrel. But a drop in sales predicted for this year by the energy ministry may trim Mr Bouteflika's budget as he moves into his new term. For now, he has promised to spend US$150 billion (Dh550.9bn) of surplus oil revenues on development over the next five years. "But the question is how," said Faycal Metaoui, an opinion writer at El Watan, a leading independent newspaper based in Algiers, the capital.

"There's no real mechanism for managing government spending." In the past, the government has often opted for showy public works to win over disgruntled voters, Mr Metaoui said. "Instead, it must focus on sectors that create jobs." The government puts unemployment at 12 per cent, but independent analysts say it may be as high as 30 per cent among young people, who make up the bulk of Algeria's population of 34 million.

However, it will need more than jobs to satisfy a generation fed up with politics-as-usual, said Nasser Djabi, a sociology professor at the University of Algiers. Fifty years ago the streets of Algiers ran with blood as the country wrested independence from France, which had colonised it since the mid-19th century. "Algerians feel that they waged a great revolution to have their country," Mr Djabi said.

"People's concerns aren't just social, they're political," Mr Djabi said. "The system needs reform." Thursday's election marked "incontestable progress for freedom of expression and the act of voting," the interior minister, Yazid Zerhouni, told reporters on Friday. But opposition parties and four of Mr Bouteflika's five rival candidates have cried foul, accusing the interior ministry yesterday of stuffing ballot boxes and fixing numbers. The ministry said 74 per cent of voters had cast ballots, an unusually high turnout for Algeria.

Statements on Thursday by two parties said voter turnout was 18 per cent at best. The US government expressed concern over the fraud claims, while confirming its commitment to working with Mr Bouteflika. Such doubts threaten to widen a long-standing rift between Algerians and their leaders, said Jacob Mundy, an expert on North Africa with the Middle East Research and Information Project. While most Algerians today are under 30, much of the political class cut its teeth fighting the French in the 1954-62 War of Independence.

Violence gripped Algeria again during the 1990s as a messy transition from one-party rule to multi-party democracy tipped the country into a civil war pitting government forces against an Islamist insurgency. Mr Bouteflika, a veteran of Algerian politics, has focused his previous two mandates on drawing a curtain on the bloodshed, and has capitalised on his earlier tenure as foreign minister to bring Algeria back to the international scene.

"Algerians do want to turn the page," said Mr Metaoui, of El Watan. "And Mr Bouteflika has brought stability." So far, Mr Bouteflika has focused on overcoming the problems of the past," said Mr Djabi. "The third mandate should be about addressing the problems of the future." [e-mail]