Algeria president wins 4th term amid widespread boycotts

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the 77-year-old, ailing incumbent who voted in his own election with wheelchair assistance on Thursday, won a fourth term in office with a landslide 81 percent of the vote, according to preliminary figures announced Friday by the Algerian government.

His chief opponent, Ali Benflis, who garnered only 12 percent of the vote, accused the election of being marked by "fraud on a massive scale" and vowed not to accept the results.

Election officials said turnout was 51.7 percent of the North Africa nation's 23 million registered voters, down from the 75 percent turnout for Bouteflika's last win in 2009.

“Abstention, the largest party in the country,” independent newspaper El Watan editor Adlene Meddi wrote, in an apparent jab at Bouteflika’s flailing National Liberation Front, which in 1962 won the nation’s liberty from France, but has since struggled to address issues like youth unemployment and widespread corruption in the public sector.

The provisional government of the nation’s predominantly Amazigh Kabyle region told Al Jazeera Thursday that he had called for Amazighs to avoid the polls, joining similar calls from the nation’s youth and multiple opposition parties, including Jil Jadid — “New Generation,” whose party secretary, Smail Saidani, echoed Benflis sentiments that a Bouteflika win would indicate the election was fixed.

When asked about the accusations of fraud, Interior Minister Taieb Belaiz detailed the election's lengthy vote-counting procedures.

"Anyone who can overcome all that, I salute their intelligence," he said.

The Algerian commission charged with supervising the election and African Union observers also said the vote went smoothly.

Bouteflika has officially garnered between 75 and 90 percent of the vote in Algeria's past four presidential contests — figures described by opposition politicians as inflated. Still he does enjoy a degree of popularity in society.

Aside from being backed by the might of Algeria's powerful state, Bouteflika also represents stability for many Algerians after a decade-long civil war in the 1990s against Islamist armed groups.

However, after being hit by a stroke last year, Bouteflika was left visibly weakened. The most striking image during Thursday's vote was Bouteflika being wheeled into a polling station to cast his ballot — his first public appearance since May 2012.

The specter of yet another term for an increasingly frail president did spark a grassroots movement called Barakat ("Enough" in North African Arabic) to protest during the campaign. The demonstrations were swiftly and violently crushed by authorities.

Massoud Hayoun contributed to this report with wire services