President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has won re-election in a landslide, according to official results released on Friday, becoming the first Algerian leader to return to power in a democratic vote in 42 years.
But the opposition cried foul and appealed arguing the poll on Thursday was marred by fraud.
Bouteflika, who said he needed a second mandate until 2009 to firmly steer the Muslim country toward democracy and a market economy after a brutal Islamic holy war, received 83.5 percent of the votes cast, Interior Minister Noureddine Zerhouni said.
His main challenger, Ali Benflis, whom he sacked as prime minister a year ago, obtained just under eight percent. The other four candidates trailed even further.
Turnout was an "exceptional" 57.8 percent, Zerhouni said, compared with 46 percent in parliamentary elections in 2002.
"For our country it is unprecedented that we'll have a stable executive elected by a wide consensus. It should get Algeria out of its crisis for good," said Abdeslam Bouchoureb, a top Bouteflika campaign official.
The election was seen as pivotal for the future of the energy-rich North African country after years of military-backed or one-party rule.
Bouteflika, a 67-year-old wily veteran politician with a moderate stance but an authoritarian streak, became the first president re-elected in democratic elections since Algeria's independence from France in 1962.
The election was being watched in the West and the United States, which sees Algeria, because of its recent past and geopolitical situation, as crucial in its war on terror.
But opponents cried foul. "Ballot boxes have been burned, the electoral list was inflated, people were prevented from voting and candidates' observers stopped from monitoring the vote - that's fraud," Benflis' spokesman Ali Mimouni said.
"Benflis has not accepted the result nor have the other candidates. Only the president has accepted it."
"We filed complaints with the Constitutional Council but we don't have any illusion about a positive result," he added.
A confident Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia said the Council would indeed rule on the complaints.
"When you lose a match it's always because it's been fixed and when you win, it was the greatest game. The Algerian people acted as referee," he told a news conference.
The Vienna-based OSCE, the Arab League, the African Union, the United States and the European Parliament had sent up to 130 election observers to Algeria, where elections have in the past been marred by allegations of fraud or military intervention.
"It was pretty clear this is what the Algerian people wanted. With our limited presence on the ground we did not see any fraud," Bruce George, co-ordinator for the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, told reporters.
"It was not a perfect election but by the region's standards it was excellent...I'm not arguing this was a perfect Swedish or Swiss election. Losers rarely accept a result with a smile."
Succeeding a list of former generals as heads of state, Bouteflika has given Algeria a civilian face abroad. He has been received at the White House and restored a measure of confidence in the country, accompanied by a return of foreign investment.
More important for voters, he has all but crushed a bloody guerrilla war that flared after the military prevented a hard-line Islamic party from gaining power at the ballot box 12 years ago. Between 100,000 and 150,000 people were killed.
Among other candidates in Thursday's poll was a moderate Islamist, a human rights activist, a liberal, and the first woman to run for president in Algeria. She got 1.16 percent.
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