An Algerian woman prepares to cast her vote in the presidential elections at a polling station in Algiers on Thursday. Algeria's incumbent President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is widely expected to win. Photo: AFP

  

Algerians were voting in presidential elections on Thursday, with incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika widely expected to win a fourth term despite chronic health problems, fraud warnings and calls for a boycott.

More than 260,000 police have been deployed to protect the 50,000 polling booths set up across Africa's largest country, where 23 million Algerians are eligible to vote for the six candidates.

The 77-year-old president, who rose to power in 1999, is the firm favorite. But all eyes will be on turnout before polling stations close at 7 pm (18:00 GMT) after 11 hours of voting.

For Algeria's newspapers, the outcome is a foregone conclusion.

"It's just a matter of the curtain coming down this evening on a bad taste political drama," commented El Watan, saying the election itself lacked credibility.

For Liberte, another daily, "maneuvering will start for real the day after the 17th," with nothing at stake in the ballot itself.

In Algiers, some policemen carried Kalashnikovs or pump action rifles.

Inside polling stations, candidates had their representatives and election officials open the transparent boxes to show they were empty before the launch.

Bouteflika faces the damaging possibility of a low turnout, with youth activists and opposition parties loudly calling on Algerians to snub the poll, and many questioning whether he is fit to rule.

He has appeared only rarely on television in recent months, looking frail, after suffering a mini-stroke last year, which confined him to hospital in France for three months.

His intention to seek re-election was announced in February, prompting derision from his critics.

Unable to take to the campaign trail himself, Bouteflika delegated that task to a team of loyalists but was expected to vote in person - as the constitution requires - at an Algiers polling station at 10 am (09:00 GMT).

AFP