Ailing Bouteflika eyes fourth term as Algeria votes

Posters of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika for presidential elections Algerians were voting in presidential elections on Thursday, with incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika widely expected to win a fourth term despite chronic health problems, fraud warnings and opposition calls for a boycott. More than 260,000 police have been deployed to protect the 50,000 polling booths set up across Africa's largest country, where 23 million Algerians are eligible to vote in a contest between six candidates after the polls opened at 8:00 am (0700 GMT).
The 77-year-old president, who rose to power in 1999, is the firm favourite. But all eyes will be on turnout before polling stations close at 1800 GMT.
Bouteflika faces the damaging possibility of a low turnout, with youth activists and opposition parties loudly calling on Algerians to snub the poll, and many questioning whether he is fit to rule.
He has appeared only rarely on television in recent months, looking frail, after suffering a mini-stroke last year which confined him to hospital in France for three months.
His intention to seek re-election was announced in February, prompting derision from his critics.
Unable to take to the campaign trail himself, Bouteflika delegated that task to a team of loyalists, who announced on Wednesday that he would vote in person -- as the constitution requires -- at an Algiers polling station, after some local media doubted his ability to do so.
There has been sporadic election-related violence in  the weeks leading up to the polls.
Youth protest group Barakat (Enough), a rare public expression of the anger and frustration felt by some Algerians towards political authoritarianism, was founded just two months ago specifically to oppose the president's bid for a fourth term.
Police violently dispersed a demonstration the group organised in Algiers on Wednesday and arrested some of its members.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have both voiced concerns about efforts by the authorities to restrict freedom of speech ahead of the vote, while Reporters Without Borders on Wednesday highlighted the difficulties faced by journalists trying to cover it.
- Turnout key -
With Barakat and a coalition of opposition parties, including the Islamist Movement for the Society of Peace (MSP) and the secular Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD), all calling on voters to shun the election, participation will be a key issue.
A leaked US diplomatic cable estimated voter turnout in the 2009 election at between 25 and 30 percent, compared with the official figure of 74.11 percent.
The president's main rival, former prime minister Ali Benflis who ran against Bouteflika in 2004 but lost heavily, charged the vote was rigged 10 years ago and has said fraud will be his "main adversary" on Thursday.
Benflis warned that he would "not keep quiet" if the election is stolen, and said he had an "army" of people in place to monitor the polls "consisting of 60,000 people, most of them young men and women armed to the teeth with conviction".
Despite the sometimes scathing criticism levelled against him in the independent media, Bouteflika remains popular with many Algerians, especially for helping to end the devastating civil war of the 1990s, a traumatic experience never far from the minds of Algerians.
The veteran leader's supporters also praise him for containing the social unrest that spread to Algeria in January 2011 as mass protests gripped neighbouring Tunisia, by offering political reforms, lifting a 19-year state of emergency and raising wages.
But discontent remains a real threat, experts say, amid high youth unemployment and poor living conditions for many Algerians, despite the country's vast oil and gas riches.
Source: AFP