Algerians openly angry at Zeroual's claims of victory

Since the Algerian government announced the results of nationwide local elections last Friday, the words "democracy" and "democratic" provoke hilarity in th Algerian capital.

The results were so patently fake - an absolute majority of 55 per cent for President Liamine Zeroual's National Rally for Democracy (RND) - that even Algerians who once saw the militarybacked regime as the lesser of evils are openly expressing their anger.

Dr Said Sadi, the leader of the secular opposition Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD), call ed the results "a humiliation for all Algerians".

Detailed accounts of election fraud emerged at the weekend: in Setif, soldiers burst into polling stations firing weapons, claiming there was a "terrorist attack". Everyone fled, including the election observers, and the military reported a majority for Gen Zer oual's RND. In other towns, ballot boxes arrived in polling stations already half full.

All the main opposition parties have demanded that the poll be annulled, and there are calls for the government to resign. From Bonn, the leadership of the outlawed Islamic Salvation Front denounced "unprecedented manipulation". In Algiers, a new spirit of resistance is spreading, with civilians defying the ban on public gatherings to stage protest marches.

In several Algerian towns, and in parts of the capital, police reinforcements are protecting town halls. An unknown number of arrests have taken place.

Demonstrators held a candle-lit sit-in in El Mouradia, the Algiers neighbourhood where Gen Zer oual cast his ballot. The RCD has provided evidence that the results were faked in Gen Zeroual's own neighbourhood: the record from the El Mouradia polling station, witnessed and signed by observers from all of the main political parties except the RND, shows that the opposition RCD won 1,674 votes and the moderate Islamist party Hamas 1,652 votes, compared to a third place score of only 1,262 votes for the RND. Yet the Interior Ministry's results gave seven out of 11 seats on the town council to the RND.

The RCD has vowed to hold demonstrations outside its central Algiers headquarters every day until the election is cancelled. "We will turn Algiers into Belgrade," an RCD official said, alluding to demonstrations that weakened President Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia.

The Front for Socialist Forces (FFS) has called for a protest march today "against fraud and the hi-jacking of the popular will" from the Place du 1er Mai to the Place des Martyrs - the site of rioting that shook the regime in 1988 and 1991.