In Pictures
Algeria’s election campaign
The road to parliamentary elections has been marked with as much dissatisfaction as the current polls.
Algeria held its first polls since the Arab Spring revolutions in neighbouring countries, amid deep voter disaffection.
The ruling party was still confident of victory and its Islamist allies still hoped for a strong showing.
As it does for every vote, the state television launched its live election day coverage with footage of voters pouring into a polling station as soon as the doors opened and jostling to be the first to cast their ballot.
The top three parties contending the elections are already enjoy governing status as a coalition, leaving turnout as the only significant figure to watch.
Many polling stations in Algiers seemed largely deserted and the overwhelming majority of voters were elderly but the state reported the highest turnout in the vast country’s most inaccessible desert regions.
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was a minister in Algeria’s first independent government in 1962, has said the polls should mark the rise of a new generation.
