ALGIERS, 30 September 2005 — Algerians voted yesterday on a peace charter presented by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika as the only hope of ending a conflict that has left 150,000 people dead but which opponents dismiss as a pretext to extend presidential powers.

Early turnout figures provided by the Interior Ministry showed that less than half — or 44.01 percent of Algerians — had cast their ballots by 2 p.m. (1300 GMT) on a charter whose approval will result in many of those jailed for the killings being freed.

The Algerian press said that voter turnout would be the real test of the referendum, with papers repeating the widespread belief that a “yes” result was guaranteed from the 18-million strong electorate.

Bouteflika launched a “civil reconciliation” initiative at the start of his first five-year term in 1999, leading to a partial amnesty for thousands of rebels who laid down their arms.

The program was endorsed overwhelmingly in a referendum, and Bouteflika was re-elected in 2004 largely because the peace initiative helped quell the fighting that erupted after the army canceled an election in 1992 which Islamist politicians were poised to win.

The violence has eased considerably in recent years, but some 50 people have been killed in September during referendum campaigning.

The government estimates there are about 1,000 armed extremists, whose aim is to install an Islamic state, still at large in Algeria. Most of the fighters are believed to be from The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).

Turnout was highest among people voting in Algeria itself, at 44.58 percent, while only 33.08 percent of the Algerians voting abroad turned out.

The voting did not go off without incident, with youths destroying ballot boxes in the restive Kabylie region in northeastern Algeria where turnout was the lowest. Turnout was as low as 6.84 percent in the region’s capital Tizi Ouzou.

A smiling Bouteflika voted mid-morning in a booth in Algiers, as did Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia, who told reporters that the referendum was “a turning point, without any doubt, which is fundamental in moving out of the crisis that this country has experienced.”

If approved, the new charter would end legal proceedings against detained, exiled or fugitive extremists “who have already halted their armed activity.” Only “those involved in massacres, rapes and bomb attacks in public places” would be excluded from the amnesty.