Algeria: Bouteflika poised to clinch fourth term in office

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika looked set to win a fresh term in office with allies claiming victory in April 17 election, with the large majority of the electorate expressing, through the ballot box, their total support for a fourth straight mandate.

The electors by voting for Bouteflika, chose stability and didn’t want to embark on the “unknown” with another less experienced candidate compared to the incumbent President, analysts surmised.

Official results are due to be announced by the Interior minister Tayeb Belaiz during a press conference at the Aurassi hotel in Algiers on Friday, but Bouteflika’s camp claimed the independence war veteran backed by the dominant National Liberation Front (FLN) and other parties in addition to mass organizations, the civil society and the UGTA had succeeded in securing five more years at the helm of the nation.

The 77-year-old Bouteflika, who has appeared in public only a few times since his stroke, earlier voted in Algiers while sitting in a wheelchair. He gave no statement and only briefly shook hands with supporters before leaving the polling station.

“Our candidate is the winner,” Abdelaziz Belkhadem, Bouteflika’s personal representative, told reporters without giving any details. “Without any doubt, Bouteflika secured a landslide victory in the April 17 elections.”

Ali Benflis, Bouteflika’s main rival in a field of opposition candidates struggling to challenge him, quickly rejected the election results because of alleged fraud but did not cite any specific accusations.

“I do not recognise these results, I condemn this fraud,” he said soon after the closing of the polls.

Algeria under Bouteflika has been seen as a partner in Washington’s campaign against extremist armed groupings in the Maghreb and a stable supplier of about a fifth of Europe’s gas imports.

But concerns about Bouteflika’s condition and how Algeria manages any transition have raised questions about stability in a region where neighbouring Libya, Tunisia and Egypt are still in turmoil after the Arab Spring revolts of 2011.

Loyalists portray Bouteflika as the man who helped stabilize and rejuvenate Algeria after the so-called “black decade” marked by the maddening scourge of terrorism in the 90’s.

But several opposition parties have boycotted the vote – including rivals the Islamist MSP and secular RCD – saying it is slanted in Bouteflika’s favour and unlikely to bring reforms to a system little changed since the country’s independence in 1962.