Election Day Tranquil in Volatile Algeria

The president who led this blood-soaked nation through the waning years of an Islamist uprising appeared poised to win a second term Thursday in an election that was seen as a test of Algeria’s democratic leanings.

In a land where elections are often tangled with the threat of violence, the voting went off without widespread rioting, bombing or battles. A nation groping to find peace apparently voted with the hope that Abdelaziz Bouteflika will continue calming the violence and improving the economy. Citizens young and old spoke less of politics and more of deliverance from massacres, disappearances and poverty.

“We’re just praying that justice will be brought to this country,” said Abdel Adim Mohend, a retired handyman who made his way up the concrete steps of an ivy-walled elementary school to cast his vote. “We just want somebody to bring us justice.”

It has been more than a decade since the army called off presidential elections that were likely to give power to Islamists, provoking a devastating civil war.

In 1999, Bouteflika was handed the presidency by military leaders behind the scenes as his electoral opponents complained of a rigged vote and quit en masse.

This time, the military pledged to remain neutral, and Bouteflika faced a diverse gallery of five opponents that included a Trotskyite woman and an Islamist. A former revolutionary who came of age battling the French in Algeria’s war for independence, Bouteflika campaigned on promises to stifle terrorism, boost the economy and brighten Algeria’s image abroad.

In popular perception, it was Bouteflika who managed to tame the fighting and drive combat deaths down to their current rate of between 100 and 150 a month. Analysts say he has only provided political cover for a secret cease-fire between the militants and the army -- but in the streets of Algiers, nobody’s trifling with details.

“Before Bouteflika came, it was terrible,” said Amina Khroufi, 22, who recently graduated with a degree in management but has yet to find a job. When her father retired from the military, the family moved from a restive mountain region to the capital, tracing a well-worn path to Algeria’s swelling cities. “It’s incredible,” she said. “Since he became president we’ve seen a lot of changes.”

But Bouteflika’s detractors say he has exploited his position to bolster his campaign. The president spent months jetting around the vast nation to give out cash, glad-hand local leaders and pose for photographers. He used state television and radio for self-promotion, and the election was overseen by his interior minister.

“The problem is, Bouteflika controls everything, and we’re afraid that power will be used to control the elections,” said Faisal Metaoui, a political correspondent for the Algerian newspaper El Watan. “He’s a dictator in the suit of a democrat.”

Just hours after the polls closed Thursday night, Bouteflika’s supporters claimed victory and jammed the streets of Algiers, cheering and honking. Meanwhile, his former friend, now his bitter rival and toughest opponent, Ali Benflis, accused the president of widespread fraud.

“We have noticed massive fraud during this election,” Benflis spokesman Ali Mimouni told Reuters. He gave no evidence to back his claims. Earlier in the week, three of Bouteflika’s leading opponents threatened to send their activists into the streets if the election was not clean.

But the vote showed some new democratic elements. For the first time, soldiers and policemen were banned from voting in the barracks. About 120 international observers monitored the vote.

“It’s not a free and fair election like in the Western world, but it’s a step,” said Moustafa Bouchachi, a lawyer and human rights activist. “For the first time, I have the feeling that a lot of Algerians don’t know who will be president.”

In the shadows of hulking tenements in the scruffy neighborhood of Bendjarrah, the streets were bustling at noon Thursday with peddlers, teenagers and old men who crowded the sidewalks to escape their cramped homes. Bouteflika’s name was everywhere in the jammed alleys -- along with the discontent that the president will be expected to tackle.

Like most of the Arab world, Algeria is a country of young people -- and the youth are weary of the bleak economic landscape, unenthused at the prospect of living in claustrophobic flats with their extended families, sleeping in shifts and casting about for a salary.

“I’m waiting for Bouteflika to bring me a job,” said Sidi Suleiman, 27, who drifted aimlessly among ramshackle stands of sunglasses, olives and eggs. “We want to get married. We want jobs. If not, we want our visas so we can escape the country.”

The question of reconciliation is also bearing down. Bouteflika hadn’t been in office long when he declared an amnesty for Islamist militants, a controversial move that brought the guerrillas out of the mountains and back into the villages.

So far, Algeria has avoided confronting its war crimes. Bouteflika’s insistence that Algerians need to reconcile rather than investigate hasn’t sat well with many victims, especially the families of about 10,000 people who disappeared over the last 12 years.

“We are all the time waiting for this government, but it refuses to say anything about the missing people,” said Ben Azuz Sidali, a retired accountant with watery eyes and a weary air.

Sidali hasn’t seen his son since 1995, when he vanished from his job as a secretary at a rural town hall. This week, Sidali stood at the fringes of a demonstration by families of the disappeared. Behind him, mothers chanted, “Bouteflika, give us the truth about our sons!”

Many Algerian intellectuals insist that the years of violence and fear have left them wiser -- and poised to put together a proper democracy. The political pull of the Islamists appears to have lessened, and most Algerians are expected to support a secular candidate.

“I feel ashamed of what happened here. The whole world watched Algerians killing each other,” said Bouchachi, the lawyer. “But I have a lot of hope that we’ll be the first Arab country to have a real democracy.

“The source of the violence is ignoring people, denying them the freedom to express themselves.”