President’s Party Sweeps Municipal Elections in Algeria

ALGIERS —  A party formed this year to back Algerian President Liamine Zeroual trounced all rivals in municipal elections Friday as the regime cemented its plan to legitimize governing institutions to face an Islamic insurgency that has claimed more than 65,000 lives.

Opposition parties charged widespread fraud even before the results of Thursday’s voting were announced, alleging that the turnout figure of more than 66% was inflated and that in some instances poll watchers were roughed up and stopped from observing the tally.

But members of the pro-Zeroual National Democratic Rally shrugged off such criticism, blaring horns and waving Algerian flags as they drove in triumph through the streets of the capital. Police prevented an anti-election demonstration that had been planned in the center of town, news agencies reported.

Although nine candidates were killed in the run-up to the elections, Thursday’s voting took place without major violence, officials said.

The National Democratic Rally won easily, replicating its victory in June parliamentary elections. It got more than half the 10.5 million votes cast and captured about 55% of the seats on local assemblies and regional assemblies, according to official results.

The second-place finisher was the National Liberation Front--which ruled the country as a one-party state for 30 years--followed by the Movement for a Peaceful Society, a moderate Islamist party.

The results gave Zeroual’s party more than 8,000 out of about 15,000 seats in the country’s local and provincial assemblies, Interior Minister Mustafa Benmansour said. Three opposition parties said they planned to challenge the outcome because of the alleged irregularities.

Opposition parties have charged that the state administration has been unfairly biased in favor of the National Democratic Rally since it was founded six months ago. Because it so quickly became the country’s dominant party, pundits refer to it sarcastically as the “baby with a mustache.”

With the latest vote, Algerians have now completed what Zeroual calls a “rebuilding” of democratic institutions in a country that has been torn by strife since 1992. A president, a parliament and local governments all have been chosen within two years despite the government’s war with extremists battling to turn this country into an Islamic state.

“It is the culmination of the legitimacy of the system,” said Benmohamed Moulouol, a journalist for the pro-government newspaper El Moudjahid. “By this, we will end the crisis.”

A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, was less optimistic.

He said the voting demonstrates that the government is able to maintain “the basic institutions of society,” but he saw no indication that the outcome will diminish the ability of extremists to carry out violence.

“They will be able to maintain that capability for the foreseeable future,” he said.

Algeria’s unrest began in 1992 when army generals stepped in to cancel parliamentary elections in January that were about to be won by the radical Islamic Salvation Front. The Islamic party was declared illegal, and local governments, at that time already dominated by the front, were dissolved--their functions taken over by appointees of the military-backed regime.

According to official figures, turnout Friday among the 16 million eligible voters topped 66%, about the same as in the June parliamentary elections. But around Algiers, where most of the country’s shocking massacres have occurred in recent months, the turnout was well under 50%, the government acknowledged.

Lamia Kedad, a doctor in the capital, said she did not vote in part because she was so discouraged by the aftermath of violence she sees at her hospital.

“When you assist in [treating the victims of] a massacre and then they ask you to vote, I could not do that,” she said Friday. “In this situation, voting looks like something ridiculous.”