ALGIERS, 24 January 2004 — The Algerian government and leaders of the Berber minority have agreed to overturn the results of elections held in 2002, paving the way for talks to resolve the long-running crisis in Kabylie province, a government statement said yesterday.
The accord, which was signed by both sides late Thursday after 13 hours of talks in the national capital, Algiers, called for “unduly elected officials” voted into office in regional, local and parliamentary elections in Kabylie in 2002 to be removed from office.
In the statement, the government said the revocation took effect on Jan. 20 and committed itself to take “the necessary measures with the concerned parties” to overturn the results of the elections “in a climate of calm and within a reasonable time scale.”
Talks on the broader crisis in Kabylie, considered the Berbers’ homeland, were due to begin later yesterday.
The government statement said that the results of local, regional and parliamentary elections would be overturned in the voting districts of Tizi Ouzou, Kabylie’s main city, 110 km east of Algiers, and in Bejaia, the northeastern province’s second largest city, lying another 150 km east of the capital.
In three other regions — Bouira, Setif and Boumerdes — the results would only be overturned in predominantly Berber vote precincts, where a call by Berber leaders to boycott the polls was widely heeded.
Voter turnout for the 2002 elections in Kabylie and nearby districts with large Berber populations was in single-digit percentage figures.
Kabylie has been a hotbed of unrest since 1980, when riots broke out in the regional capital Tizi Ouzou over demands for an end to cultural and economic marginalization of Berbers, who make up one-fifth of Algeria’s population of some 31 million.
