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ALGIERS, May 12, 2012 (AFP)
Algeria wasted an opportunity to bring about change, Islamist leader Bouguerra Soltani said Saturday, after elections saw his alliance lose ground and the ruling party consolidate its supremacy.
“The May 10 consultation wasted a golden opportunity to achieve the Algerian Spring by the ballot box,” Movement of Society for Peace (MSP) leader Soltani told AFP about Thursday’s legislative polls.
The MSP is Algeria’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and the main party in the Green Algeria electoral alliance that had hoped to emulate Islamist poll triumphs in neighbouring countries in the wake of the Arab Spring.
Official results announced on Friday however bucked the regional trend, with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s National Liberation Front — which has ruled Algeria for 50 years — winning 220 out of 462 seats up for grabs.
Green Algeria and the four other Islamist parties could only manage 59 seats as they contested the country’s first elections since a wave of popular uprisings swept the region demanding regime change and democratic reform.
“We think the Spring is only delayed and the people will re-assess these results when the ruling party starts tackling the social and economic problems it promised to solve during the campaign,” Soltani said.
The campaign was marked by deep voter disaffection, especially among the country’s majority of young people, and lack of trust that polling would be transparent.
“We were expecting balanced results between the parties, reflecting the political landscape. These results shocked public opinion,” said Soltani, who alleged fraud on Friday.
The MSP pulled out of a three-party presidential alliance in January to form its own electoral platform but kept four ministerial posts.
Soltani refused to say however whether his party would stay in a government coalition if invited to do so and added a decision would be made on May 19.
The MSP, formerly known as Hamas, lost its legitimacy among the grassroots when it accepted to govern with the FLN and took up some of the most lucrative portfolios in the cabinet.
