(ANSA) - CAIRO, JUN 12 - Algeria, the largest African country and major exporter of gas to Italy, is called to the polls today for early legislative elections designed to legitimize the orphaned power system of the late president Abdelaziz Bouteflika but boycotted by the protest movement "Hirak" which in April 2019 pushed the twenty-year-old and sick autocrat to resign - with the decisive shoulder of the military.
With the winning parties of the previous round of 2017 increasingly discredited, a high rate of abstention is expected that should favor more or less independent candidates and moderate Islamist groups able to garner a relative majority.
The secular and left-wing opposition has appealed to the boycott, or at least to the freedom of choice whether to go to vote, moreover in apparent loss of consent. A strong abstention is therefore expected and the parties in power are hoping for a participation rate of between 40 and 50%. 60 and 70% respectively had already been abstention in the presidential elections of 2019 and in the constitutional referendum last year.
To elect for five years the 407 deputies of the National People's Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, about 24 million Algerians are called, who will have to choose from over 1,500 lists presenting more than 13,000 candidates. Over half define themselves as "independent": never so many, could they establish themselves as a new force in Algeria with the endorsement of the current power system. Results are expected only for Monday. (HANDLE).