Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has been unofficially on the campaign trail for months, announced on Sunday he will stand for a second term in an election to be held in April.
Bouteflika told hundreds of party activists at an Algiers hotel that he was seeking five more years in office to continue his programme of ”restoring peace and promoting national reconciliation”.
He said he was responding to appeals he had received from people across the oil-rich north African country and hoped to ”get Algeria back to work” and ”reestablish the country’s place in the concert of nations”.
Algeria has since 1991 faced a low-level civil war between the secular establishment and armed Islamic extremists which has claimed more than 100 000 lives.
Bouteflika took 70% of the vote in the last election in 1999, when his six opposing candidates withdrew on the eve of the poll citing electoral fraud. He has in recent months been visiting the provinces of the former French colony, receiving glowing coverage on the single state television channel. His opponents, who have formed a ”front against fraud” against Bouteflika, have accused the president of exploiting state resources in the run-up to the April 8 poll.
Bouteflika’s leading challenger in the election is likely to be his former protege, Ali Benflis, secretary general of Algeria’s former sole political party, the National Liberation Front (FLN). – Sapa-AFP