ALGERIA - ELECTION
President's allies sweep elections
Friday, May 18, 2007
The three parties allied with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika retain their clear majority in Algeria's parliament, as the government declare the outcome of Thursday's elections.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Algerian President's allies sweep parliamentary elections
By AFP
ALGIERS, May 18, 2007 (AFP) - The three parties allied with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika have retained their clear majority in Algeria's parliament, the government said Friday as it declared the outcome of the previous day's elections.
The National Liberation Front (FLN), the Democratic National Rally (RND) and the Society of Peace Movement (MSP) together clinched 249 of the 389 seats in the National People's Assembly, said Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni.
In the previous parliament, the three parties had held 297 seats, including 208 for the FLN, once the only legal party in oil- and gas-rich Algeria, the biggest country in north Africa.
This time around, the nationalist FLN claimed 136 seats, the liberal RND took 61 seats, and the Islamist-oriented MSP won 52 seats, said Zerhouni as he declared the results on live national television.
It appeared that the FLN had suffered the most important loss of seats, with support swinging to its two partners.
Little more than one in three registered voters turned out for Thursday's parliamentary polls, which unfolded against a backdrop of suicide bombings in the capital Algiers on April 11 which killed 30 and injured 220.
The blasts were claimed by Al-Qaeda's branch in North Africa, which had issued an appeal to the nation's nearly 19 million voters to boycott the election.
Political analysts said the disappointing turnout owed more to the fact that parliament has little real power, and that the competing political parties had failed to raise much interest on the campaign trail.
The radical left Workers' Party, lead by Louiza Hannoune, one of Algeria's most popular politicians, won 26 seats in Thursday's vote to become the leading opposition group in parliament.
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