Electoral fraud warning as Algeria goes to the polls

ALGERIANS, lurching towards democracy after a bloody Islamic uprising, are going to the polls today in a presidential election that pits President Abdelaziz Bouteflika against a group of challengers warning of possible electoral fraud.

Bouteflika's opponents claim authorities could manipulate results from some 40,000 polling stations across Africa's second-largest country, a hotbed of Islamic extremism. But allies of the president have vowed that the election will be fair.

Polls were opening at 8am BST and close at 8pm, but official results were not expected before tomorrow.

Bouteflika squares off against a group of five contenders that includes his one-time protege, former prime minister Ali Benflis, plus Islamic candidate Abdallah Djeballah and Said Sadi, a contender from the restive Kabylie region.

The other candidates are Louisa Hannoun, a Trotskyist from the Workers' Party and little-known Ali Faouzi Rebaine from the tiny Algeria of Patriots party.

The vote could mark a turning point towards democracy for the country, which has fought a deadly Islamic rebellion for a dozen years and lived in the shadow of a powerful military since Algeria won independence from France in 1962.

Western diplomats and some experts said Bouteflika, whom the United States has embraced as an ally in the war against terrorism, was likely to win re-election. But doubt lingered about whether he would win a majority to avoid a run-off on April 22.

"It will be a big unknown if he does not win," said Miriam Lowi, an Algeria expert at the College of New Jersey.

Critics of Bouteflika claimed that cronies of the 67-year-old president were planning to hijack the election by tampering with votes as they poured in to election headquarters from dozens of regions.

"He can't win in the first round without using fraud," said Mohammed Khendek, a spokesman for Sadi. "The fraud if it happens will take place from inside the interior ministry."

Rivals have accused Bouteflika of monopolising the airwaves on state-run TV and radio to build support, and independent newspapers joined the chorus of concern about the prospect of fraud.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, Benflis, Sadi and Djeballah claimed that Bouteflika intended "to announce victory in the first round with a percentage of 53%-55%".

International observers (120, mostly from Africa and the Middle East) are on hand, but their task is enormous in monitoring returns across Africa's second-largest country.