Algeria polling stations ransacked in unpopular presidential vote

Algeria held a presidential election Thursday that has been fiercely opposed by a nine-month-old protest movement and was hit by unrest at several provincial polling stations.

The demonstrators who forced ageing president Abdelaziz Bouteflika to resign his two-decade tenure in April have pushed on with weekly rallies to demand far more sweeping reforms to the political system ahead of any vote.

Shortly after polls opened, attackers "ransacked the ballot boxes and destroyed part of the electoral lists" in the disaffected northern mountain region of Kabylie, home to much of the country's Berber minority, a resident of the city of Bejaia told AFP.

Elsewhere in Kabylie, a large crowd surrounded a polling station in the city of Tizi Ouzou and protesters also took to the streets of Bouira, witnesses said.

Kabylie has a long history of opposition to the central government but Thursday's presidential vote was unpopular across much of the country.

In central Algiers, uniformed police and plainclothes officers were out in force and made about 10 arrests in the morning to prevent a repeat of the previous day's mass demonstration.

Five candidates are in the running, all of them widely rejected as "children of the regime" of Bouteflika -- among them former prime ministers Abdelmajid Tebboune and Ali Benflis and a former minister, Azzedine Mihoubi.

Turnout was expected to be extremely low after demonstrators shouting "no vote" again pressed their demand for a boycott, facing off with truncheon-wielding riot police in Algiers on the eve of the polls.

Polls were scheduled to close at 1800 GMT but the result may not be announced for a day or longer, as was the case after previous elections already marked by high abstention rates.

Whoever wins will struggle to be accepted by the electorate in the north African country, where many citizens rail against a military-backed regime they see as inept, corrupt and unable to manage the flagging economy.

SS