Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika won 90.24 percent of the vote in a presidential election, officials said on Friday, extending his hold over Algeria, an oil producer with a lingering Islamist insurgency. An opposition party, which had called for a boycott of the polls, alleged fraud on an "industrial scale" and a newspaper reported rioting east of the capital.
The result gave Bouteflika, 72, a third five-year term as president, which means he can stay in power until 2014. Announcing the result, Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said: "This is a victory for the Algerian nation as it builds democracy." A close Bouteflika ally, Zerhouni said that, if there were any voting irregularities, they could not have had a significant effect on the result in the vast Muslim country that lies across the Mediterranean from the European Union.
The newspaper El Watan said on its website people protesting against the result blocked roads with burning tyres and clashed with police in Kabylie province east of Algiers. The report could not be immediately confirmed. The mountainous province has a history of anti-government protests. Two police officers were injured in an explosion at a polling station there during voting on Thursday.
Victory for Bouteflika, a veteran of Algerias war of independence from France, was never in doubt. He faced only lightweight rivals in the ballot and had a well-funded campaign. Election officials put turnout at just over 74 percent, higher than in the last presidential vote and a sign that many of Algerias 34 million people ignored opposition calls for a boycott.
"The high turnout means that the supporters of the boycott have neither political nor social influence," said Mohamed Lagab, professor of political science at Algiers University. Algerian lawmakers cleared the way for Bouteflika to stand for a third term by abolishing term limits, a move that critics said could allow him to serve as president for life.
The opposition Front of Socialist Forces, which boycotted the vote, accused the authorities of artificially inflating the turnout. "(There was) a real tsunami of massive fraud which reached an industrial scale," the party said in a statement.