"Algerians Vote for New President" (BBC)

[On the Road]

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Voting in the Algerian presidential election has been taking place in an optimistic atmosphere, despite allegations of expected fraud.
Of the six candidates, incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika is regarded as the favourite to win. But former prime minister Ali Benflis is seen as his main challenger, and could force the vote to a second round.

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The five opposition candidates accuse the president of having exploited his control of state television, the courts and the treasury to gain unfair advantages over them. But Western diplomats in Algiers say the poll appears to be the fairest since multi-party politics was introduced in 1989. Some 120 international observers have been keeping an eye on proceedings, and in an unprecedented move the military has promised to remain neutral.

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(M)any Algerians are grateful for the decline of political violence in recent years, attributed to the amnesty Mr Bouteflika offered to Islamic militants to lay down their arms. They also say he has restored Algeria's international standing after years of isolation. At least 100,000 Algerians died in an Islamist insurgency sparked off in 1992 by the army's cancellation of a parliamentary election.




http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3609865.stm

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Best news I've heard out of Algeria in years.

[On the Road]

1. Similar Article from Al-Jazeera

Algerians vote in presidential poll

lgerians have voted in a presidential election seen as a key test for the Muslim country's emerging democracy after a civil war between Islamists and a secular government.

The poll in the vast, energy-rich North African country is expected to be the freest since independence from France in 1962 and signals Algeria's return to the international fold.

----snip

President Abd al-Aziz Boutaflika is the favourite of six candidates to win an unprecedented second mandate until 2009. His main challenger was Ali Benflis, 59, his campaign manager in 1999 and prime minister until he sacked him a year ago.

Other candidates included an Islamic leader, a Trotskyite woman - the first female presidential candidate in the country - and a champion of the Kabylie region, home to a restive ethnic Berber minority.

Boutaflika, 67, is credited with all but ending a jihad which flared after the military prevented an Islamic party from gaining power at the ballot box 12 years ago.



http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B07921D9-E6DF-489A-97B4-4C7EF53C5742.htm

[Flagg]

2. Bouteflika was elected with 83%