Islamists walk out of Algeria parliament in protest

By Lamine Chikhi

ALGIERS | Sat May 26, 2012 3:02pm EDT

(Reuters) - Islamist lawmakers walked out of the inaugural session of Algeria's parliament on Saturday to protest against an election they say was rigged to hand a majority to the ruling elite's party.

Algeria, supplier of about a fifth of Europe's imported gas, is the only country in north Africa left largely untouched by last year's "Arab Spring" revolts, but some analysts predict unrest if the establishment does not loosen its grip on power.

Islamist members of parliament held up placards reading "No to fraud!" during the session, the first time the chamber had met since a May 10 election, and then walked out.

The lawmakers who left were from the mildly Islamist Green Algeria Alliance and two smaller Islamist parties who between them have about 60 seats in the 462-seat parliament.

It was not clear if the members of parliament who walked out would later return. A prolonged boycott by the Islamists could complicate a reform of the constitution which President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has promised for this year.

Changing the constitution requires the support of three-quarters of parliament. Many of the Islamists voted with the government in the previous parliament, but if they are absent, the authorities could find it harder to get over the threshold for constitutional amendments.

In the May 10 election, the National Liberation Front - Algeria's ruling party since independence from colonial ruler France half a century ago - won 220 seats, and the allied RND party came second with 68 seats.

The result was at odds with the trend elsewhere in north Africa, where uprisings have pushed out entrenched leaders and handed power to once-outlawed Islamists.

Algeria's Islamist parties failed to inspire much enthusiasm in this month's election. Their leaders have long-standing links to the ruling establishment and many people were skeptical they represented a genuine opposition force.

One specialist on Islamist politics said anger over the election could give the Islamist parties a momentum they lacked before the election.

"This could be a mistake (for the authorities) because it may unify the Islamists who are very divided now," Mohamed Mouloudi told Reuters.

Algerian officials deny any manipulation of the election result, and European Union observers, who monitored the vote, did not offer any evidence of ballot fraud

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/26/us-algeria-parliament-walkout-idUSBRE84P0G820120526

Algeria's election was a fraud

If any hopes for democracy remained for the country, widespread election fraud have quashed them. Last Modified: 15 May 2012 19:05

Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia has described revolutions of Arab Spring as a 'plague' [EPA]

London, United Kingdom - The results of Algeria's May 10 legislative elections have been met with such fury by Algerians that some analysts believe that these will be the last elections held under the current regime. If there were any hopes for democracy still remaining in the country, these elections snuffed them out. Allegations of electoral fraud have been widespread since the government announced on May 11 that the turnout was 42.9 per cent, with the government's ruling parties winning an overwhelming majority of the votes. The Green Alliance of Islamist parties accused the government of "perpetrating widespread fraud". Similar allegations were made by the secular Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD). The Algerian National Front said it would challenge the results in the constitutional court over what party leader Moussa Touati called "blatant fraud", while Ali Laskri, leader of the opposition Socialist Front Forces (FFS), said that Thursday's vote "was riddled with irregularities". Abderrazak Mukri, a spokesman for the Alliance, said that the results given by the Interior Ministry differ dramatically from those seen by the Alliance's observers. He told reporters: "There is a process of fraud on a centralised level to change the results that is putting the country in danger. … We are not responsible for what could happen." Electoral fraud by Algeria's government is normal practice and expected. All elections since 1992, when the regime annulled Algeria's only truly democratic elections, have been rigged. What seems to have incensed Algerians about these latest elections is the scale and audacity of the fraud, both in the fabrication of the turnout figure and in the distribution of the votes. Fabrication When I forecast the election result on May 9, I said that the government would come up with a much higher turnout. The "official" figure is usually put about three times higher than the "real" turnout. I predicted that the real turnout on May 10 would be in the range of 10-15 per cent, and that the official turnout figure would be 46 per cent (in the range of 40-50 per cent). As it was, the turnout was given as 42.9 per cent. The government would like to have given a figure that could have been rounded up to "about half", hence my forecast of 46 per cent. However, going much higher than 42.9 per cent on such a low real turnout could well have triggered demonstrations and violence. Parliamentary elections in Algeria On the other hand, a figure below 40 per cent would be interpreted as an admission of failure. Thus, a figure in the lower 40s was deemed sufficiently low to avoid unrest, but sufficient to enable the government to claim "success" on the grounds that 42.9 per cent is an improvement on the 2007 turnout of 37 per cent. What was the "real" turnout? On the basis of the government's usual threefold inflation of turnout, the real turnout figure would be 14.3 per cent. In fact, as more information from observers on the ground becomes available, it looks as if a figure of around 15 per cent might be about right. Professor Abdulali Rezaki of Algiers University was quoted as saying that he thought 85 per cent of voters would boycott the elections, while the RCD said the real turnout "did not exceed 18 per cent". Reports from around the country indicate that the vast majority of Algerians stayed away from polling stations in response to the calls of the FIS, AQIM, RCD, the Rachad Movement and countless youth, human rights, trade unions and other civil society organisations - in addition to many prominent personalities - to abstain. For example, a Reuters reporter stood for 45 minutes outside a polling station in Bab El Oued (Algiers) without seeing a single voter enter. The agency also reported that election officers at two other polling stations in the capital had said that about ten per cent of those registered to vote had shown up by mid-afternoon. At Laghouat, on the northern fringe of the Sahara, where the interior ministry gave the turnout figure at 4pm as 38 per cent, local observers, who had been keeping a close watch on the town's polling stations, gave the figure at that time as five per cent. Similar reports have been coming in from all over the country. In addition to this abstention, there are reports that 20-22 per cent of ballot forms were blank or despoiled. I believe that most of these were cast by people who did not want to vote but felt frightened into doing so. If these blank votes are added to the abstention, then the real vote reduces to just 11-12 per cent. Doctoring vote distribution The government's second fraud was to doctor the distribution of votes between parties. With the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS) - which would have won the annulled 1992 election - banned from participating in these elections, it was widely believed that other Islamist parties, headed by the "Green Alliance" of Bouguerra Soltani's Movement of Society Peace (MSP), the al-Nahda and al-Islaf parties and followed by Abdallah Djaballah's Front for Justice and Development (FJD), would garnish the largest share of votes. They would be followed by the government's Front de Liberation National (FLN), with the Rassemblement National Démocratique (RND) of the highly unpopular Prime Minister, Ahmed Ouyahia, unlikely to get more than one or two per cent of the vote. Unofficial figures released by the Alliance in mid-afternoon were in line with this prediction. The FLN was heading for about 100 seats in the new 462-seat Assembly, with the Green Alliance close behind. The official results, released the next day, were met with incredulity and anger. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's FLN had won 220, or 47.6 per cent, of the seats, a considerable improvement on its position in the outgoing National Assembly, while the RND came second with 69 seats (14.7 per cent), giving the two government parties a massive 62.3 per cent domination of the Assembly. The Islamist parties, in contrast, managed only 59 seats between them. The Alliance won 10.4 per cent of the vote and 48 seats, while the early front-runner, Abdallah Djaballah's FJD, won a paltry 1.5 per cent and seven seats. Even FLN supporters found these figures hard to believe. One reason for that is because the party had been in a state of intense internal fighting for the previous few months. Many of its offices had closed and most of its campaign rallies had been reduced or cancelled in the face of public resentment and disinterest. Many FLN members were of the view that the party was "finished" and that it would be lucky to pick up 20 per cent of the vote. In that light, 47.6 per cent seems beyond belief. They, too, know that this figure has been manipulated. The second reason for incredulity at the FLN vote is simply a matter of political demography. With 21,664,345 registered voters, the government's figures mean that 9.29 million people voted, a figure which not only defies observations at polling stations, but means that 4.42 million of them voted for the FLN. If we add in the RND, then it means that 5.79 million Algerians voted for the two ruling government parties, both of which are resented and hated by the vast majority of citizens. If we reduce this figure by 20 per cent to take account of the spoiled ballots, we are still left with 4.63 million Algerians voting for a government that they are desperately keen to replace. Such a figure makes no sense. The mechanics of fraud Finally, there is the overwhelming question of how such electoral fraud could have taken place when the country, according to the government's version of events, was awash with foreign observers. The obvious point is that it is absolutely impossible for some 500 foreign observers to keep an eye on 48,546 polling stations. Neither can opposition party observers cover this number of stations. The opportunity for ballot stuffing and other irregularities, especially in remote areas, is immense. In addition, the system of "vote par procuration", whereby an estimated 600,000 - 700,000 people, mostly in the police, gendarmerie, military and administrative services, can have their votes cast for them by a designated family relative, officer or official, allows for substantial multiple voting. Moreover, with the Algerian government refusing to make the electoral roll accessible to foreign observer missions, it is impossible for them to check such irregularities even if they had the resources to do so. Reactions from the government The government's reaction to these results has been one of arrogant triumphalism, encapsulated in El Moudjahid's headline: "If there's a winner on this Algerian Spring day, it's undoubtedly the people." It went on to say: "In their millions, Algerians projected a good image of democracy, proving to the world that they are not disconnected from political life." Is real change taking effect in Algeria? Horizons, another pro-government newspaper, said the vote showed an "appeased and reconciled Algeria ... diametrically opposed to those who wreak chaos and support interference". In the run-up to the election, Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia described the so-called Arab Spring as a "plague", which, he said, had resulted in "the colonisation of Iraq, the destruction of Libya, the partition of Sudan and the weakening of Egypt". Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said that the "remarkable" turnout of 42.9 per cent confirmed Algeria's democratic credentials. He explained the large vote for the FLN as a sign that Algerians wanted the security of the government rather than "change", and that they had seen through "the false claims of the Islamists". Foreign reaction Algerians can draw little comfort from the reactions of Algeria's Western and Arab allies, whose support for Algeria since 1992 has been more about maintaining the present regime in power than encouraging democracy. The Arab League's 132-member observer mission said the election was "transparent, credible and well-organised", while the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation praised the "successful and democratic elections... held in an organised, transparent and peaceful manner". Neither recorded any irregularities. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hailed Algeria's elections as "a welcome step in Algeria's progress toward democratic reform", while Britain's Foreign Secretary, William Hague, congratulated the people of Algeria "on the conduct of the elections and the progress they represent". Jose Ignacio Salafranca, head of the EU observer mission said that the vote was satisfactory and that "citizens were, in general, able to truly exercise their right to vote". Based on these readings, Algerians clearly have nothing to worry about. Jeremy Keenan is a professor of social anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/05/201251482813133513.html

Algeria's ruling party wins legislative polls

National Liberation Front takes 220 seats and its sister party in government, the National Democratic Rally, bags 68. Last Modified: 11 May 2012 17:21 inShare5 Email Print Share Feedback

Officials said the turnout of 42.9 per cent was remarkable and an improvement on the last ballot in 2007 [Reuters]

Algeria's National Liberation Front and a sister party have won legislative elections, defeating an Islamist alliance. Dahou Ould Kablia, interior minister, said on Friday the National Liberation Front took 220 seats and its sister party in government, the National Democratic Rally, took 68 seats. The two parties now form a majority in the 462-seat parliament. The Islamist Green Alliance came in a distant third in Thursday's elections with just 48 seats. The alliance has denounced what it is calling fraud and has threatened to take "the appropriate measures," without elaborating. The new parliament will be entrusted with helping a new constitution as well as set the stage for the all-important 2014 presidential elections. Zineddine Tebbal, head of foreign relations for the Movement for the Society of Peace (MSP) party, part of the Green Alliance, told Al Jazeera the results did not show "the reality of Algeria's political arena". He said the outcome had been "manipulated" and would be rejected. "Any measures we take will be peaceful and will be within the law ... and we can co-ordinate with other parties to have a common position," Tebbal said. 'Remarkable' turnout Turnout for the vote widely viewed as a test of the ruling elite's legitimacy was 42.9 per cent, said the government. The figure, announced on Thursday evening by Kablia, marked an improvement on turnout at the last elections in 2007 and was claimed by some an endorsement for recent political reforms introduced in the wake of the Arab Spring. Speaking on the North African country's only channel in front of a framed picture of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Kablia declared that the turnout was "remarkable" and that the results confirmed Algeria's democratic credentials. While many opposition activists said the official figure had probably been inflated, calls for boycotts appeared not to have achieved the massive abstention some were predicting. Still, the fact that more than half of eligible voters did not go to the polls was no surprise in a climate of mistrust and cynicism against the parliamentary system, which many Algerians view as nothing more than a veneer for the military government. The ruling FLN has dominated the country's political life since the country won independence from France 50 years ago. These elections were expected to make more room in parliament for a coalition of Islamist parties, competing under the umbrella of the Green Alliance, as well as for the secular opposition Socialist Forces Front (FFS). 'Manipulation of results' "It seems there's been a manipulation of the results," Kamel Mida, press officer for the MSP, told Al Jazeera by phone. Statistics collected by the Green Alliance's own observers gave the coalition 101 out of 462 seats, he said. The authorities had set up special voting booths for security forces, where 100 per cent of votes appear to have been given to the FLN. "We will wait and see what results they announce, and then we will meet with the other opposition parties to decide how we will react," Mida said. Unlike the Islamist parties that have come to power in Morocco, Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, the Green Alliance has worked closely with the government. The FFS said in a statement on Friday that it recognised "the motivations for the abstention in peaceful protest, brought about by years of fraud, of predation and authoritarian contempt for freedoms and citizens' rights". "A sharp divide has been drawn between activists engaged in peaceful protest in favour of democratic change, and those who prefer dirty money and depolitisation," Ali Laskri, the lefist opposition party's general secretary, said in a statement. Tentative legitimacy By allowing more room for some opposition parties, critics of the regime say that the military is simply managing the process so as to maintain its grip on power. Bouteflika began the reforms with a speech in April 2011. After the legislative election, the next step in this reform process would most likely be to name a prime minister to replace Ahmad Ouyahia. In the lead-up to Thursday's vote, the government had earlier said a turnout of 45 per cent would be a "success" and Bouteflika made a plea to young Algerians to at least cast blank votes rather than abstaining. The official turnout appeared sufficiently high to suggest the generals' strategy of gradual reforms had been a success, Le Matin, an independent daily newspaper, wrote in an editorial published on Friday. "For now, the 'Arab Spring' chapter is closed, and Algeria is settling into a new era of uncertainty," the paper wrote. "The voter turnout for the legislatives, even if it only reached 42 per cent, is more than enough to ensure the credibility of the democratic process by which the national assembly has been elected and to reinforce their legitimacy," the paper continued. The generals’ decision to respond to the Arab Spring by "substantially widening the political cliental" that benefits from their monopoly on power, by ensuring that members of the security forces, government bureaucrats and some opposition parties were given a greater share of the pie, Le Matin wrote, had avoided more radical change. The official turnout figures revealed that consent was much lower in some parts of the population. In Algiers, the capital, only 30.95 per cent cast ballots, according the official statistics. In Tizi-Ouzou, the capital of the Kabylie region which has been the historic centre of popular uprisings, only 19.84 per cent of the eligible population voted. Only 14 per cent voted among Algerians living abroad. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/05/2012511154737409267.html

Algerian Islamic leader opposes election

Al Jazeera interviews Ali Belhadj, the fiery leader who led anti-regime protests of the 1980s, as Algerians go to polls. Yasmine Ryan Last Modified: 10 May 2012 11:29 inShare2 Email Print Share Feedback

Ali Belhadj speaking in a mosque in March, one of many public appearances he has made in recent months [Al Jazeera]

Ali Belhadj is a hardline advocate of political Islam with a history of inspiring protests in Algeria, and he is a vocal opponent of the legislative elections. In 1988, Belhadj became a leader of the street protests that forced the Algerian regime to introduce democratic reforms for the first time. He then became the vice-president of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), a party advocating an Islamic form of government which quickly won over disenfranchised Algerians hungry for change. The military staged a coup d’état on the eve of almost certain victory for the party. The FIS has been illegal ever since, but in recent months, Belhadj has once again been rallying supporters in mosques across the country against Algeria's May 10 legislative elections. Al Jazeera spoke to him in a phone interview about why he is calling for a boycott of Thursday's elections, his views on the Islamist parties that work with the government, and whether the FIS is still relevant. Q: What is your stance on the election boycott? A: We are calling for a boycott of the elections. The Algerian regime has denied those calling for a boycott the right to political activities. They were denied access to the media outlets and all other means of communicating their opinions and pointing out the political justifications for the boycott. This is why the only people able to remain active are the participants taking part in the elections, who were given complete freedom for action. Q: What is the mood amongst the Algerian people? A: A huge amount of money has been spent on doing whatever it takes to coax people into taking part in the elections by any means. The majority of the Algerian people, however, are desperate, and view these elections as an absurdity for which public funds are being squandered. Public frustration surges when election time comes, since Algerians will get neither heavenly nor worldly gains from them. The Algerian regime is sticking to the timetable for the elections despite the boycott by politicians and people ousted by the regime. Advocating the boycott does not necessarily mean calling for foreign intervention, chaos, and a return to the years of bloodshed, as the regime falsely alleges. Those of us boycotting the elections are calling for establishing a transitional period in which power would be transferred in a smooth manner, to another generation via an election process. A national unity government would initially be formed, followed by a constituent council which would be formed for drafting a new constitution for the country. General elections would then follow, beginning with the municipalities, the regional, then legislative and presidential elections. By adopting this calm and peaceful plan, the country would be able to resolve the crisis that has plagued the Algerian people for so long. Q: You have been travelling the countryside speaking to the Algerian people, in recent months. Have you been able to do this freely? A: When we went there, we were monitored by security elements, either openly and directly, or covertly. We do not pay heed to such actions, as we expressed our political opinions, even if we were arrested after our political tours. We have faced some restrictions and arrests, but that would not deter us from expressing our political views about what we view as the solution for resolving the country's crisis. Of course, most of the people we encountered [during the past few months of travels] complained that the regime is always absent whenever people are in dire need. This is true to municipalities, the regional government and the presidency of the republic. Q: What is your view of the Islamist parties competing in the elections in the Green Alliance? Would they be able to change Algeria, if they win the majority? Could the FIS work with them? A: Islamic parties in Algeria are different to their counterparts in Tunisia, Egypt and other countries. This is because Islamic parties in Algeria have allied themselves to the regime and have become part of it. They have defended regime policies, and had practically merged themselves with the president’s political programme, becoming an inseparable part of the regime. Though we hope the Islamic parties will win the elections, we have to remain objective enough to be honest: that Islamic parties in Algeria have supported the regime, have become part of it and defended its cause. So however many votes these parties win in the elections, they will not win the majority of votes. They may only win a number of seats that would not change anything in the regime. We do not oppose these parties, or any other parties. What we oppose is the Algerian regime in the first place. Thus, change would only come after changing the regime, opening the political arena for all parties in an objective and real manner. Then, the Algerian people would elect rulers who would serve their national interests. Q: There was a video published online that shows you condemning French President Nicolas Sarkozy over the burial of Mohammed Merah in France. What do you think about Merah's actions? A: The man was killed, most probably after orders were issued to kill him. Since Merah did not stand trial, we cannot judge whether he was guilty or not. This case has vanished with the man, or will remain stored in the archives of the French security authorities, and the political authority there. We cannot denounce someone whom justice did not convict and was unable to defend himself. What we are criticising is the fact that the French authorities could have captured him, particularly that he was alone. There are lawyers in Algeria and France who have sympathised with Merah and were planning to file a case against French security authorities prior to launching an investigation into Merah’s death. With regard to Sarkozy, I am not interested in France's internal affairs, except for the fact that we do not want France to interfere in our internal affairs. Q: Do you think there is still widespread support for the FIS, given the trauma of the decade of violence in the 1990s? A: If another Algerian party faced what the Islamic Salvation Front has faced, including marginalisation, kidnappings and the expulsion of thousands of members, it would have been wiped out. The FIS will neither praise nor criticise itself. We want to be given official recognition for exercising peaceful political activity. Then we need to have an elections timetable that would reveal if the FIS still had widespread grassroots support, or whether it had lost its support and became weaker. Q: Some of your supporters have been claiming you should be made president. What is your reaction to this? A: The Algerian people are not represented by those who have been forcibly gathered in government halls. Algerians are more honest than those who keep applauding and chanting for the ruling party. We have been ruled for 50 years without any real achievements in the fields of politics, the economy, fine arts, or in the intellectual domain. This is why we have the right to aspire to the presidency, not through secret deals, but through popular struggle. Since ruling a country is based on a political process, as opposed to personal ambitions, feuding factions and army generals, it would be the people who would take us to the presidency. Q: What political system do you believe would be best for Algeria? A: The parliamentary system is the most suitable to Algeria, even though it has some negative aspects, because the presidential systems in the Arab world have turned into dictatorships. We are not picking the parliamentary system, with its flaws, but we would rather make our choices through a national comprehensive dialogue where debate would take place at a constituent authority for drafting a new constitution, with the majority having the upper hand. Q: Do you think the governments in Tunisia, Libya and Morocco are on the right track? What should they do differently? A: We cannot tell them what they should do, since they are more qualified than us to manage their affairs. They are free to do what they choose. But I would note that for observers following the political situation [in these countries], it is clear that it is unlikely that there will be political stability in these countries anytime soon. It will take years rather than months to address their difficulties, since something that was corrupted over 100 years cannot be rectified in hours. This is why it is important to give these events adequate time to evolve, bearing in mind the examples of revolutions in France and the United States and how long it took them to achieve political stability. Such revolutions can only bear fruit after many years, during which remnants of the toppled regimes will keep working in the dark to undermine political reforms and incite divisions among the people. They may fanaticise about setting back revolutionary reforms for a return to the defunct dictatorial regimes. But the freedom of the people is priceless. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/05/201251052640101562.html

Algerians to go to polls in nation left behind by Arab spring

Fear of return to violence of 1990s – and alleged electoral fraud – help keep the FLN in power

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• Eileen Byrne in Algiers
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 May 2012 12.47 BST

Children hold pictures of Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika during a commemoration of the 1945 Setif massacre, when many thousands of nationalists were killed when they staged a protest demanding the end of French rule. Photograph: Mohamed Messara/EPA

Beyond Algeria's north-eastern borderlands, now covered in spring flowers after heavy winter snow, Tunisia has toppled a despised ruling family and is the model for a relatively smooth "democratic transition".

Further east, Libya has cast aside the Gaddafis, although it is still struggling to find stability, while Egypt continues in full revolutionary turmoil. Across Algeria's still-closed border to the west, Morocco's King Mohammed has ceded some ground to an elected government, which for the first time in history is led by Islamists.

But as Algeria goes to the polls on Thursday to elect a new parliament, the most striking thing about North Africa's largest country is what hasn't happened, rather than what has.

The 75-year-old president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, of the independence-era National Liberation Front (FLN), has been at the helm for 13 years. In 2008 he secured a third term after changing the constitution to allow it, and secured 90% of the votes in a contest with five other candidates. Opponents described the election as "a tsunami of massive fraud which reached an industrial scale".

The true turnout figure in Thursday's vote is likely to be extremely low, most of Algeria's semi-free press agrees, as voters stay home in protest at an election process often seen as an insult to their intelligence.

The country is still run by a closed group of civilians and military who make decisions, including about election results, far from the glare of the media.

The composition of this inner circle, referred to as "le pouvoir", may have changed slightly over the decades, but the principle is the same. In short, there has been no Arab spring in Algeria.

If chronically high unemployment among college leavers provided the tipping point for revolution in Tunisia, Algeria simmers with similar frustrations. The hydrocarbons revenues that help the ruling elite continue in power account for nearly 70% of the country's tax receipts, but onshore oil and gas are hardly labour-intensive: the sector provides jobs for only around one in 100 Algerians.

The most recent IMF figures show that although unemployment overall has eased significantly in the past decade to around 10%, partly reflecting a lower birthrate, among young Algerians it is still obstinately high, at 21%.

Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi's suicide in December 2010 has prompted dozens of copycat suicides and attempted suicides in Algeria.

The most recent such tragedy was Hamza Rechak, from the town of Jijel on the Mediterranean coast. He set himself alight after police asked him to take down his unlicensed street stall, and suffered for two days before finally dying from his burns on 1 May. As young men from the town took to the streets, attacking police stations and destroying the local FLN office, the police responded with teargas and Rechak's family appealed for calm via local radio.

Elsewhere across Algeria, as in neighbouring Tunisia, each week brings new reports of impoverished rural communities mounting roadblocks to demand water, domestic gas supplies or better housing.

In such an oil-rich country, Algerians freely argue, people should not be living in shanty towns half a century after the nation secured, at great human cost, independence from France in 1962.

So why hasn't Algeria risen up like its neighbours?

As commentators have repeatedly noted, the population is still "traumatised" by the nightmare of the 1990s, when perhaps more than 100,000 civilians died.

That internecine conflict began in 1992, when the military stepped in to block an imminent Islamist electoral win.

By 1999, the official death toll stood at 70,000, and for reasons that have never been fully explained, this was revised upwards to 150,000 and beyond after Bouteflika took office.

As a result Algerians discount any way forward towards democracy that might degenerate into violence.

This sentiment is strong among much of the population, but women with families are among the most gravely adamant on this score.

Young male football fans, meanwhile, last year produced their own satirical take on al-Jazeera's revolutionary drumbeat: instead of the well-worn slogan calling for a regime's fall, they chanted: "The people – want – free hashish!"

As the same potential voters explain, as well as coinciding with an end to the conflict, Bouteflika's period in office since 1999 has seen some economic improvement.

New housing and student residences have been built, there is a better financial deal for women on divorce, and – after the Arab spring especially – a liberal sprinkling of grants for the young unemployed to set up small businesses.

Bouteflika is looking increasingly frail, and his FLN party attracts mainly the vote of the older generation. But he has also courted the football fans, and somehow manages to avoid much of the opprobrium directed at his prime minister, Ahmed Ouyahia.

The ruling circles still determine the tone of much of the media, including the single, state-controlled television channel. A revision to the press law last year means that journalists no longer face prison if they stray over certain red lines in their commentary on the state of the nation, but the extremely heavy fines that have replaced the prison sentences are effective deterrents.

Media coverage has highlighted continuing tensions in Tunisia – officials refer to an "uprising" there rather than a revolution – and especially in Libya.

Al-Jazeera television crews are still excluded from Algeria, as they have been since the early days of Bouteflika's presidency.

Ouyahia leads the RND, a conservative offspring of the FLN that no doubt echoes the hardliners within the pouvoir.

"There is no lesson in democracy that we need to learn from the Arab spring, because our spring is Algeria," he said last weekend.

All the talk of change that some parties were deploying in their election campaigning would only cause the country to slide back to the "death and destruction" of the 1990s, and could give malevolent foreign forces an opportunity to encroach on national sovereignty as Nato had in Libya, he said.

• This article was amended on 11 May 2012. The original said Mohamed Bouazizi's suicide was in December, when it was in December 2010. This has been corrected.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/09/algeria-votes-arab-spring