Election of Algerian Ouma council in Mid-December; Presidential party loses 266 seats due to petitions
Algeria, Politics, 11/13/1997

The Election Committee will select 2/3 of the members of the Ouma council (the parliament) on Thursday, December 15th. The Election Committee consists of members of the Districts and the Provincial Councils which consists of 15,003 members. Each of the 48 Algerian provinces nominates two members for the Ouma Council. The Constitution gives the President the right to appoint the remaining third of the members of the Ouma Council.

The Ouma council consists of 144 members, 96 of which are elected while 48 are appointed. The council has the right to reject or accept any draft law submitted by the government. The Presidential decree to form the election committee comes 24 hours after the judicial councils stated the results of the petitions submitted by the opposition parties in municipal elections.

Meanwhile, the Algerian Ministry of Justice stated that the National Democratic Tagamoua (Gathering) Party, which is known as the presidential party, lost 266 seats in the municipal and provincial elections, 239 seats of which are in the municipal councils. Those seats were gained by 9 parties and some independent nominees.

The Liberation Front received 174 seats, the Peaceful Society Movement received 39 seats, the Renaissance Movement received 20 seats, the Socialist Powers Front received 10 seats, Party of the Free received 8 seats, the Gathering for Culture and Democracy received 6 seats, and the remaining 8 seats were won by small parties. 1,160 petitions in 47 provinces petitions were submitted to questoin the election results. The province of Tandouf was the only province that witnessed no petitions.

Previous Stories:
  Algeria forbids demonstrations, even by parliament !   (11/10/1997)
  Peaceful Society Movement refuses to sign election monitoring report   (11/8/1997)
  Balloting complete in Algeria   (10/24/1997)

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