Parliament poll in Algeria, amid growing popular discontentment





-COL DR. ABDUL RUFF



______________













Algerians have voted for a new parliament on 09 May in a race
characterized by high levels of apathy over what the public perceives as
entrenched government inertia and corruption. About 25,000 candidates competed and
more than 48,000 polling stations opened early morning, many under tight police
surveillance. The vote to choose 462 members of parliament saw
44 parties — 21 of them newly created — vie for seats in an enlarged parliament,
in an election President Abdelaziz Bouteflika promised marks “the dawn of a new
era.” But he knows nothing would change.








Algeria's
governing party, the National Liberation Front (FLN), has, amid a feeling the poll would change little for
ordinary people, won a disputed parliamentary elections held on 10 May. The party, according
to the results, won 220 out of 463 seats, while its partner in government, the
National Democratic Rally (RND) of Prime
Minister Ahmed Ouyahia, a nationalist party close to the military and loyal to
Bouteflika, came second with 68 seats, compared to 62 in the outgoing house.
An Islamist alliance, which has alleged fraud, came third with 48 seats. Although the
results largely maintain the status quo, the provisional results, which have
yet to be confirmed by the constitutional council, mean the FLN and the RND
could form a majority without the Islamists. Algeria's outgoing governing
coalition included the FLN, the RND and the largest of the legal Islamist
parties, the Movement of Society for Peace.







The main
competitors in the election were two government affiliated parties
squaring off against a three-party bloc of Islamist parties known as the
"Green Alliance." It
was speculated that FLN is likely to win the most votes; the FLN will
almost certainly need to find coalition partners in order to govern.















Indifferent Algerians voted for Parliament. The sun blazed down on the capital, Algiers. It was a national
holiday and Algerian flags - white and green with a Red Crescent moon -
fluttered from the lamp posts. But very few people were out on the streets. At
a polling station in the el-Biar district of Algiers, there were about a dozen
police officers outside, but almost no voters for them to keep under control. About
500 international observers were on hand to monitor the voting in
Algeria, a North African nation of 37 million plagued by high
unemployment. The observers were from the European Union, African Union,
Arab League and other organizations.















Voting has ended in a parliamentary election in Algeria marred by
a low turnout. Initially only roughly 15 percent of voters
turned out, but the percentage kept on increasing as time passed. Many
observers had predicted that ever deeper mistrust, especially among the
country's majority of young people, could lead to an even worse turnout than
the historical low of 35 percent recorded in 2007. The poll campaign produced no new faces and failed to draw crowds as
turnout had been expected to be low. Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia
announced a "remarkable" rate of 42.36 percent which he said
confirmed Algeria's democratic credentials.


















But
the Parliamentary elections in Algeria are billed by the government as
the fairest in 20 years, but as polls opened disgruntled Algerians
appeared to be showing little interest and even outright scorn for the
vote. The authorities said turnout was a higher-than-expected 42.9%. All
polling stations were largely deserted, and some observers have
dismissed the official figure as inflated. There has been large-scale
manipulation of the real results announced in the regions, an irrational
exaggeration of these results to favor the administration parties, as Green Algeria said in a statement. It warned it would take measures in protest.













Algeria's Islamists were reeling from a stinging setback in
legislative polls which saw the ruling party come out on top, resisting the
Arab Spring's tide of democratic change. In the wake of the popular revolts
that became known as the Arab Spring, moderate Islamist parties recorded
electoral victories in Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco. Ouyahia argued that the Arab
Spring was hardly an attractive scenario, calling it a "plague" that
had resulted in "the colonization of Iraq, the destruction of Libya, the
partition of Sudan and the weakening of Egypt."












In
fact, three Islamist parties forming
the Islamist Green Algeria Alliance or Green
Algeria, which saw their combined share of the seats
drop, said the election was fraudulent and dangerous. The opposition Rally
for Culture and Democracy, which chose to boycott this election, claimed the
announced turnout was fraudulent and that the real figure "did not exceed
18 percent." The Socialist Forces Front, Algeria's oldest opposition
party, garnered only 21 seats and also cried foul, charged the regime has used
the election "only to consolidate its power". Some 500 foreign
observers brought in by Bouteflika to monitor the vote reported only minor
hiccups but they were denied access to the national electoral roll, which grew
by four million voters since 2007.














The authorities had
been keen to present the vote as a sign of democratic reform and an alternative
to the Arab Spring pro-democracy protests of last year. The unrest largely
passed Algeria by, but its ageing political elite has been under pressure to
reform. Dozens of parties took part, after President Abdelaziz Bouteflika
approved the establishment of 23 new political parties.
















2011 being a year of Mideast protests, Algeria was the site of some Arab
Spring protests, but they were not as large as in other countries in North
Africa and the Middle East. Last
year's revolts in the region left the country largely untouched, but it
is now under pressure to reform and renew its ageing establishment. However, after those protests, in February 2011,
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's government declared an end to a nearly
two-decade state of emergency, lifting restrictions on speech and assembly
imposed to combat an Islamist insurgency. The emergency declaration was part of
a clampdown on Islamist movements during a civil war that left more than
150,000 dead. But critics said the insurgency had long since diminished, and
the law remained solely to muzzle critics of the government.









Although
Algeria’s government was never threatened by mass protests or civil
war, the Arab Spring has raised expectations for greater freedom and
democracy. Voter disaffection could prompt many to stay at home.
Islamist parties have struggled to draw crowds during the campaign, as
have other factions. Under
pressure to reform after last year's "Arab Spring" in the region,
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika approved the establishment of 23 new
political parties and an increase in the number of seats in parliament
to 462.




The
regime argues that the anageresults showed Algerians' desire for
stability, at a time when regime change was bringing chaos to other
countries, and outright rejection of Islamism, whose rise 20 years ago
led to civil war. The
last truly fair elections in 1991 were dominated by a populist Islamist
party known as the Islamic Salvation Front, but the military stepped
in, canceled the voting and banned the party, prompting more than a
decade of civil war that killed an estimated 200,000. No party has since
been able to mobilize Algeria's disaffected citizens to the same
degree. The historic party of the independence fight from colonial ruler
France, the National Liberation Front, with its deep network across the
country, has since won the most seats.






Algeria, a gateway between Africa and Europe, has been battered by violence over the past half-century. Algeria is a key oil and gas supplier. Part
of the Turkish Ottoman empire from the 16th century, Algeria was
conquered by the French in 1830 and was given the status of a
"department". The struggle for independence began in 1954 headed by the
National Liberation Front, which came to power on independence in 1962. More
than a million Algerians were killed in the fight for independence from
France in 1962, and the country has recently emerged from a brutal
internal conflict that followed scrapped elections in 1992. The Sahara
desert covers more than four-fifths of the land. Oil and gas reserves
were discovered here in the 1950s, but most Algerians live along the
northern coast. President
Bouteflika led his country out of the civil war that broke out when
Islamists were denied an election victory; since the 1990s, the Islamist
insurgency has been replaced by Al-Qaeda-inspired movement.




Algeria supplies
large amounts of natural gas to Europe and energy exports are the
backbone of the economy. After years of political upheaval and violence,
Algeria's economy has been given a lift by frequent oil and gas finds.
It has estimated oil reserves of nearly 12 billion barrels, attracting
strong interest from foreign oil firms. However, poverty remains
widespread and unemployment high, particularly among Algeria's youth.
Endemic government corruption and poor standards in public services are
also chronic sources of popular dissatisfaction. Major protests broke
out in January 2011 over food prices and unemployment, with two people
being killed in clashes with security forces. The government responded
by ordering cuts to the price of basic foodstuffs, and repealed the 1992
state of emergency law.







A
Note

Muslim
rulers and leaders across the world is no different in attitude to
people from others. Living standards, sincerity and faith level
in Algeria clearly demonstrate how hollow the Islamic world is. Despite
its hydrocarbon wealth, there is widespread dissatisfaction in the
country and frequent demonstrations and riots over unemployment, poor
utilities and lack of housing. While
unemployment is only officially at 10 percent, it rises to at least 20
percent among those under 30, some 70 percent of the population. Algeria, Africa's largest by area is a vast oil-rich North African nation of 35 million people. Most
Algerians are distrustful of politics and largely ignored a three-week
campaigning period. Party rallies were rarely full and in some cases
candidates were heckled and even pelted with rocks by disaffected
citizens.


State
agencies of Algeria have billed the poll as Algeria's most free and
fair, but it has been marred by widespread voter apathy. Many
people said there was no point in voting because it wouldn't change
anything. Many Algerians see parliament as a rubber stamp for any laws
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika wants to pass. Billboards put up
especially for the elections have had their campaign posters ripped down
or defaced - a sign many people have chosen to boycott this vote.

The ruing National Liberation Front (FLN), once the only legal party, has been
steadily losing ground since political pluralism was introduced in 1989. Many
voters feel that even if the composition of parliament changes, it would
continue to rubber-stamp any laws that the president wants to pass. With a majority, the party can ruin the nation further.



Algeria
as an African nation cannot be expected to be free form corruption and
crimes but as a Muslim nation it is binding on the rulers and Muslim
leaders to help root out corruption from the society and nation.


Without
looking for guidance from other Muslim nations that disobey Islam and
promote anti-Islamic trends and NATO led terror wars, Algeria must
strive towards true Islamization of the society quite sincerely.






--------
د. عبد راف


Col Dr. Abdul Ruff, Specialist
on State Terrorism; Educationalist;Chancellor-Founder of Centor for International
Affairs(CIA); Independent Analyst-columnist;Chronicler of Foreign
occupations & Freedom movements(Palestine,Kashmir, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Xinjiang, Chechnya, etc); Anti-Muslimism
and anti-Islamism are more dangerous than "terrorism" Anti-Islamic
forces & terrorists are using criminal elements for terrorizing the
world and they in disguise are harming genuine interests of ordinary
Muslims. Global media today, even in Muslim nations, are controlled by CIA & other anti-Islamic agencies. Former university Teacher;/website:abdulruff.wordpress.com/ 91-9961868309/91-9961868309