Algeria Islamists predicted to win 40% of vote

Former minister and head of the Algerian Front for Change Party, Abdelmadjid Menasra, expected Algerian Islamists to take forty percent of the vote during the upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for April this year if elections were “fair”.

Menasra told Turkish state-owned Anadolu news agency that the Algerian people have many political options which would prevent the dominance of a single party or movement in the upcoming elections.

“We give priority to reconciliation to create a new phase based on stability and democratic transformation,” Menasra said.

According to the Algerian interior ministry, by November last year there were 23 million registered voters in Algeria.

In the May 2012 elections, Islamist parties won 60 seats out of 462 in Algiers’ legislature.

Menasra expects the upcoming elections to be fairer than its predecessors that were marred by accusations of vote rigging.Nevertheless, Islamists, largely crushed after years of civil war by secular authorities, still managed good results.

The former minister expected this year’s elections to be more transport largely due to the increasing “maturity” of the political class and the coordination between them, providing a “framework for collective pressure on power to reduce fraud and respect the popular will.”

Menasra believes that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika will end his almost two-decade term as leader of the oil-rich North African state,while bringing the country out of its financial, economic and social crises.