By
Christian Lowe and Hamid Ould Ahmed
ALGIERS (Reuters) – Algerians voted on Thursday in an
election the ruling elite says will set the country, left behind by the “Arab Spring”, on the road to
real democracy, though many people were sceptical about the promises of reform.
parliamentary elections at a polling station in the Berber region of Bani Amrane, about 70 km (43
miles) southeast of Algiers, May 10, 2012. Sceptical Algerians abstained in large numbers from the
parliamentary election on Thursday which the country's ruling elite hoped would help them claw back
credibility after Arab Spring revolts left them looking out of touch. REUTERS/Ramzi Boudina
Election results were not due until Friday
afternoon, but Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said on state television that final turnout was 42.9
percent, higher than the near-record low many people had been predicting.
Last year’s upheavals
in other Arab states have created pressure for reform in Algeria and a renewal of the ageing
establishment that has ruled without interruption since independence from France half a century
ago.
The authorities in this energy-exporting country have responded by promising an “Algerian
Spring” – a managed process of reform – and framed Thursday’s election as the first phase.
The
election is likely to give the biggest share of seats in parliament for the first time to moderate
Islamists, mirroring the trend in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia.
“The young people will
make an Algerian Spring in this election,” said Bouguera Soltani, whose mildly Islamist “Green
Alliance” coalition is tipped to become the dominant force in the new parliament.
“The 2012
parliament is different from the previous ones because it will have new prerogatives. People who
boycott (the vote) will regret it,” he said as he voted near his home in Staoueli, a town west of the
capital.
Many Algerians, however, see elections as futile because real power, they say, lies
with an informal network which is commonly known by the French term “le pouvoir”, or “the power”, and
has its roots in the security forces. Officials say the country is ruled by democratically elected
officials.
Reuters reporters in the capital Algiers, in fishing villages on the Mediterranean
Sea to the west and in the Kabylie mountains to the east saw only a trickle of people going into
polling stations.
“WHAT’S THE USE?”
Holding a plastic coffee cup at a pavement cafe in
the town of Zeralda, west of the capital, a man in his 30s said he had no plans to go to a polling
station. “What’s the use? Parliament has no power,” Karim Chiba said.
Those who voted did so
more out of a sense of civic duty than any enthusiasm. “How do I express myself if I don’t vote? It’s
a civilisational act, to change things peacefully,” said Djamel Abbi, a 43-year-old teacher.
A
Reuters reporter who stood for 45 minutes outside a polling station in Bab El Oued, a neighbourhood in
the capital, said he did not see a single voter enter. At two other polling stations in the city,
election officers said about 10 percent of those registered to vote had shown up by
mid-afternoon.
Some diplomats expressed surprise at the turnout declared by the interior
minister, but asked by Reuters about the figure, Jose Ignacio Salafranca, head of a European Union
monitoring mission, said it was “more or less in line” with his team’s observations.
Despite
the apathy in Algeria, there is little appetite for a revolt. Energy revenues have lifted living
standards and people look with alarm at the bloodshed in neighbouring Libya after its
insurrection.
In Algeria, a conflict in the 1990s between security forces and Islamist
insurgents, which killed an estimated 200,000 people, still casts a shadow. The fighting started after
the military-backed government annulled an election which hardline Islamists were poised to
win.
Those Islamists are now either dead, in jail, in exile or have renounced
politics.
The generation of Islamists now challenging for seats in parliament is very different.
They reject radical change. Some of their leaders are ministers in the government.
Many of them
voted in Staoueli on Thursday because it is the nearest polling station to their homes in Club des
Pins, an exclusive state-owned compound on the Mediterranean shore reserved for ministers and members
of parliament.
The interior minister is expected to announce the first result of the voting on
Friday. After that, Algerians will turn their focus to what is likely to be a more important
contest.
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 75 and frail-looking, is unlikely to run again when his
fourth term expires in 2014, and some people believe he could step down before then.