By Lamine Chikhi
ALGIERS (Reuters) -Algerians voted on Saturday in an election in which military-backed President Abdulmadjid Tebboune is widely expected to win a second term, but early turnout figures suggested little enthusiasm among voters.
By 5.00 p.m. (1600 GMT) only 26.5% of registered voters had cast ballots, the electoral commission said, announcing that polling stations would remain open until 8.00 p.m., an hour later than planned, to allow more people to vote
Tebboune, who has used higher gas revenues to splurge on social benefits in his first term of office, faces no serious rivals. Two other candidates are running, but neither opposes the military establishment that has called the shots since the 1960s.
Preliminary results may be announced late on Saturday, though final official results are not expected to be declared until in the coming days.
"I have voted for Tebboune to give him an opportunity to pursue his policies," said Smail Hached, 39, at a polling station in an Algiers suburb.
Abdeslem Aziz, 24, said he dislikes politics and politicians and does not see any change coming from the election so he would not vote.
A Tebboune victory would mean Algeria keeping policies aimed at strengthening the country's energy exports and enacting limited pro-business reforms while upholding lavish subsidies and keeping a tight rein on internal dissent.
However, many Algerians will be watching to see whether turnout will exceed the 40% registered in 2019's election, held amid the mass 'Hirak' protests that forced Tebboune's predecessor Abdulaziz Bouteflika from power.
In Lakhdaria east of Algiers, Naima Belgacem said she was one of the roughly two million Algerians to have benefited from the 15,000 dinars ($113) a month unemployment benefit Tebboune introduced, and that she intended to vote in the election.
"It's not huge money, but it's still good money. It covers my phone expenses and other things," Belgacem said.
While Algeria's unemployment rate fell to 12.25% last year from more than 14% during the COVID pandemic in 2020, many young Algerians like Belgacem are seeking work and Tebboune has promised to raise their benefits and create half a million jobs.
Belgacem, who has a diploma from a business school in Algiers, often takes the bus into the capital in search of work but there is "still nothing", she said.
STATE SPENDS ON SOCIAL HOUSING
In March the International Monetary Fund praised Algerian efforts to reform the economy to diversify away from oil and gas as a means of boosting private sector growth that could drive employment.
However, the fund warned that large government deficits driven by high spending risked leaving public finances vulnerable to economic shocks.
The spending is visible everywhere in Algiers, where new apartment blocks providing social housing have risen across the capital's suburbs, creating new neighbourhoods festooned over the past weeks with election posters.
The contrast to Algeria's last election in 2019 is stark. Then, President Bouteflika had been in office for 20 years and was in frail health, often unable to make public appearances.
Low energy prices from 2014 had tanked state finances, leading to big cuts in government spending on housing and other benefits.
The 2019 mass protests brought hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets to demand an end to corruption and the departure of the old political elite.
Demonstrations kept going after Bouteflika left office, saying the Hirak movement's goals had not been met, but the COVID pandemic closed the streets and a series of arrests targeted some protest leaders, bringing the rallies to an end.
Rights group Amnesty International this week said Algerian authorities had used new laws targeting dissent, as well as crackdowns on opponents, in the run-up to the election.