Algeria: Legislative elections (pub. May 23, 2007)
Searching more than 75 years of world history
The three-party ruling coalition in Algeria, each party allied with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, on May 17, 2007, won a reduced majority of seats in legislative elections to the 389-member National Assembly (the lower chamber of the bicameral federal legislature). The pro-regime National Liberation Front (FLN) won 136 seats, whilst the other pro-regime party, the National Democratic Rally (RND), won 61 seats, and the moderate Islamist Movement for the Society of Peace (MSP) won 52. The elections were notable for a low voter turnout of 35 per cent, the lowest in Algeria since multiparty elections were legalised in 1989. The election campaign had been marred by the death of more than 30 people in a series of bomb attacks in Algiers (the capital) on April 11 and in the eastern city of Constantine on May 16. The al-Qaida Organisation in the Islamic Maghrebclaimed responsibility for the attacks in Algiers.
