In the just held Presidential elections incumbent President AbdelAziz Bouteflika has scored a stunning victory getting 83 per cent of the votes. His rival Ali Benflis got 7 per cent of the votes. Thus 67 year old President Bouteflika has been reelected for a new term of five years.

Benflis has denounced the election as a fraud. Yet it is like a landslide and he will have a hard time to make his claim stick. There were plenty of election watchers. A Belgian Senator Anne-Marie Lizin has stated, "election took place according to European Standard". The US State Department has made similar observation.

In an editorial the famous French daily Le Monde has stated, "This is the last mandate for the last Representative of a generation of leaders born out of the War of Independence against France" The paper points out that now a real transition begins between the army and the civilian power.

Since her independence in 1962, which I had the honour of witnessing then as a member of the Pakistan Permanent Mission to the UN, Algeria had a rough ride. The elected leader Ben Bella was overthrown and imprisoned by a military coup led by Col. Houari Boumediene. Algeria staged a very successful Non-Aligned Summit in September 1973. An Algerian Delegation led by M'hamed Yazid called on Prime Minister Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and invited to join the Non-Aligned Summit. He announced the recognition of Algeria to the newly independent state of Bangladesh. For us at that time recognition of states was of great importance specially from Arab and Muslim states. Yazid requested that Bangabandhu opens a Bangladesh Embassy in Algiers and pointing at my direction stated "we want him as your Ambassador". I was then Chief of Protocol.

I rushed to Algiers and opened our Embassy. The day after my arrival I was received by Foreign Minister Bouteflika, then in his early thirties and his close adviser from the Ministry Abdel Hamid Adjali. My meeting with Bouteflika was prominently shown on Algerian TV and I became an instant celebrity in secretive Algeria, where Ambassadors rarely met the Foreign Minister. I informed our Foreign Minister Dr. Kamal Hossain that the Algerian Foreign Minister had assured that we would join the Non-Aligned Summit as full member. Dr. Kamal Hossain waited in Geneva for the Foreign Ministers to unanimously decide to invite us as member. The Algerians opened their doors wide for us and our bilateral relations picked great momentum. The Algerians are big producers of oil and gas and our engineers joined their giant organisation Sonatrach and Algreian youngsters joined our jute establishments for training. Bangabandhu made a deep impact on the Non-Aligned Summit and we received the recognition of nearly 100 members of the Summit.

Then came the tragic assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, his almost the whole family and close associates in the jail. In an unusual gesture President Boumediene received me in a farewell call and admonished, "Why did you have to kill my brother Sheikh Mujib? You could have sent him to me and I would have looked after him".

The eighties and the better part of the nineties the Algerian state had to grapple with serious fundamentalist threat. Blood flowed freely throughout Algeria as the armed forces were pitted against the Front of Islamic Salvation (FIS). This country of 32 million people superbly endowed with gas and oil and a coast rich in natural resources and excellent climate, was unable to realise its potential. To compound her miseries she got locked in a conflict on Western Sahara with her close neighbour Morocco. That dispute continues to this day.

I have to admit with sorrow that we have been unable to sustain the excellent beginning that we had made in our bilateral relations. The Algerians opened an Embassy in Dhaka and have closed it since and we have closed our Embassy in Algiers.

Through their massive mandate in favour of AbdelAziz Bouteflika the Algerians have opened a new page. Tired of senseless bloodshed the people of Algeria have signaled that they want to get on with their lives. They have won freedom from France after a bitter war of liberation. Thus Algeria strikes a chord in our hearts for we too fought a heroic War of Liberation. Since independence Algeria, inspite of the fact that she got embroiled in a terrible civil war, has made remarkable progress in many fronts, specially education.

The people of Algeria have placed their destiny in the hands of AbdelAziz Bouteflika, steeled in the War of Liberation and has a 40- year political past behind him.

Arshad-uz-Zaman is a former Ambassador.