ALGIERS, February 2, 2012 (AFP)
ALGIERS, February 2, 2012 (AFP)
Algeria will hold a parliamentary election in the first half of May, the first in the north African country since a wave of popular uprisings in the region, the prime minister announced on Thursday.
“In line with the law, the elections will take place before next May 17,” Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia told reporters on the sidelines of the Senate’s closing session, adding that the exact date would be announced soon.
“It will be during the first fortnight of the month of May,” he added, quoted by the APS news agency.
The election will be the fourth multiparty parliamentary vote in Algeria, which last went to the polls in 2007 and gave a majority to parties that backed Ouyahia, including the once sole ruling National Liberation Front (FLN).
It will also be the first since the Arab Spring began last year with a popular revolt in neighbouring Tunisia, which triggered unrest in Algeria and led President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to pledge a raft of reforms last April.
Algeria is a major oil and gas producer, a sector that accounts for almost
all of its foreign earnings.
But other sectors of the economy are underdeveloped and youth unemployment was running at 21 percent last year, according to the World Bank.
The current parliament is dominated by the FLN, which has played a key role in Algerian politics since it battled the way to independence from France in 1962, and the National Democratic Rally (RND), led by Ouyahia.
Seventeen new parties have been authorised to hold their first congresses under a new law passed last month following the reforms announced by Bouteflika.
