Algeria's Bouteflika seeks third presidential term

ALGIERS (AFP) - Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced Thursday that he will run for a controversial third term in April 9 elections he is tipped as certain to win.

Bouteflika, 72 next month, will face limited opposition with two of the main potential challengers boycotting the poll after parliament passed a constitutional amendment three months ago to lift a two-term presidential limit.

The leader of one of those parties has described the vote as a "pathetic and dangerous circus."

Promising to spend 150 billion dollars (117 billion euros) on development and create three million jobs over the next five years, the president confirmed his candidacy at a rally attended by around 5,000 people amid strict security measures, including the jamming of mobile phones.

He said he would stand as an "independent," pursue his policy of national reconciliation and "fight against terrorism with all necessary means" while leaving the door open to those who "repent."

Oil-rich Algeria could "continue its intensive economic development, despite the world economic crisis," he said, adding that public and private investment under his stewardship had created 3.5 million jobs since 1999 and lowered the unemployment rate from 30 percent to 12 percent in the same period.

First elected in 1999 and returned five years later with 84.99 percent of vote, Bouteflika said at Thursday's meeting that he will again promote "the politics of national reconciliation."

Having defied harsh criticism to grant amnesty to thousands of rebels in a war that claimed some 150,000 lives going back to 1992, it is a strategy which has already twice secured heavy endorsement in referendums.

"The dice were rolled" with December's constitutional amendment, commented Said Sadi of the Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD). The other principal opposition party, the Social Forces Front (FFS), has also refused to participate.

Of the 18 people to have taken out paperwork to run for office, only one, Algerian National Front leader Moussa Touati, had gathered the necessary signatures by Tuesday.

One Islamist is considered a possible candidate, while a Trotskyist who ran in 2004 is due to announce his decision this week also.

Former president Liamine Zeroual, who led the country from 1995 to 1998, has refused to stand and former prime minister Rheda Malek went so far as to quit politics entirely.

A leader of the country's Islamist movement, Abdallah Djaballah, has also announced he would not take part in the elections.

Born March 2, 1937, in Oujda, Morocco, of Algerian parents, Bouteflika joined the National Liberation Army in 1956 to help fight the war of independence against French forces, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives prior to victory in 1962.

At just 26, he became foreign minister, a post he held for 13 years, but was sidelined from government after the death of President Houari Boumediene in December 1978. He left political life in 1981.

Solicited in 1994 to take over the presidency, he declined, and the job was given to Zeroual.

After nearly two decades in the wilderness, Bouteflika returned from self-imposed exile in Switzerland to run in 1999 with the backing of the army.

He initially faced six rivals, but wound up standing alone when they all pulled out, crying foul.

Since coming to power, Bouteflika has already spent more than 150 billion dollars to modernize the country's oil and gas-rich economy.

There is now no limit -- other than nature -- on the number of presidential terms he could serve.