ALGERIA - May 31 - Low Election Turnout.

Government officials say 46% of eligible voters turned out in elections, which resulted in a sweeping victory for the Front de Liberation National (FNL), the party that brought the country to independence from France in 1962. The FLN won 199 seats in the new 389-seat assembly. Another state party came second and a legal and moderate Islamist party won 43 seats, the third largest share of the vote. The opposition Front des Forces Socialistes and the Rassemblement pour la Culture Democratie, which draw their support from Kabylia, a tense Berber region east of Algiers, both boycotted the polls. The results were denounced by the Front des Forces Socialistes, which said the turnout announced was "surreal". Much of the opposition considered the poll an attempt to pretend that the country was moving towards democracy more than a decade after the army cancelled elections an Islamist party was poised to win, provoking years of violence. On May 31, the US State Department welcomed the holding of the election, with State Department spokesman Richard Boucher saying the US saw progress in Algeria for "greater democracy". Relations between Algeria and the US have improved since Sept. 11 as Washington appears more willing to back a regime that has long justified its fight against Islamist militants - severely criticised by human rights organisations - as a legitimate war against terrorism. The Rassemblement National Democratique (RND), led by Ahmed Ouyahya, the minister of justice and a former PM, which had the largest share of seats in the outgoing parliament, saw its representation drop to 48. The results confirmed speculation that one of the aims of the election was to ensure a prominent role for the FLN once the RND failed to win legitimacy. The RND had been formed a few months before the 1997 election to take over from a discredited FLN. Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni defended the regime against charges of vote-rigging, saying the fact that only 46% of the eligible population voted pointed to the transparency and credibility of the voting process. He said: "Before the polls ended certain protestations were made. All were systematically examined. Nothing was found. In all parts of the world there are those who boycott elections. It was not the authorities who stopped them. I don't know why you ask of Algeria what is not asked of other countries".