Algeria opposition to boycott inauguration

Algeria's opposition parties say they're set to boycott Monday's inauguration of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika

Algerian opposition parties are set to boycott the inauguration of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. (AAP)

Algerian opposition parties are set to boycott the inauguration of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika after his re-election in a campaign he was too sick to participate in.

Five of the parties vowing to stay away on Monday called on their supporters to boycott the election itself.

A sixth - the Socialist Forces Front (FFS) - left its rank and file to make up their own minds whether to vote in the April 17 poll.

"It's the logical conclusion of the election boycott," said Abderezak Mokri, leader of the Movement of Society for Peace, on Sunday.

His party and two other moderate Islamist groups - the Front for Justice and Development and Ennhada - joined with the Jil El Djadid (Party of Youth) and the fiercely secular Rally for Culture and Democracy in the polling day boycott.

Turnout in the election was just 50.7 per cent, according to official figures, sharply down on the 74.5 per cent reported when Bouteflika won a third term in 2009, although that figure was criticised in a leaked US embassy cable as inflated.

Bouteflika, who turned up in a wheelchair to cast his own vote on polling say, has hardly been seen in public since a mini-stroke which confined him to hospital in Paris for three months last year.


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Source: AAP

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