Bouteflika reaped 83.5 percent of the vote held Thursday in the north African country while Benflis came in a distant second, scoring 7.93 percent.

Benflis immediately rejected the result, charging "rampant fraud." He told AFP that North Korean strongman Kim Il Sung "couldn't have done better."

Sacked as Bouteflika's head of government last May in an acrimonious falling-out, Benflis had been seen as his top challenger on Thursday.

The elections were billed as a watershed for Algerian democracy because for the first time the all-powerful military declared itself neutral in the process; electoral laws were liberalized so that party officials would be given vote tallies; and some 120 international observers were on hand.

For the first time since independence more than four decades ago, many Algerians sensed that their vote could make a difference, after being in the habit of assuming in the past that the military made the real choices.

Bouteflika, who was elected under a cloud five years ago in an empty contest after all six of his rivals pulled out alleging fraud, asked supporters at his final campaign rally on Monday to hand him the "crushing victory" needed for a "credible state."

But the score of 83.5 percent was too much for candidate Said Sadi, the fourth-place runner-up with just 1.93 percent of the vote, who called it "grotesque."

"It's a bad sign. It presages a form of absolutism that is going to come over this country. (Bouteflika) wants to rule as an absolute master," said Sadi, the head of the Rally for Culture and Democracy with a strong following among Algeria's minority Berbers, many of whom boycotted the election.

On Thursday, Benflis, Sadi and Abdallah Djaballah, a radical Islamist candidate, issued a joint communique saying that according to their projections no candidate had won more than 50 percent of the vote, and a second-round run-off would be necessary.

The Bouteflika campaign swiftly dismissed the rival candidates' claim, accusing them of wanting to "disobey the popular will" and courting "grave dangers for the entire nation."

Interior Minister Fazid Zerhouni, in announcing the results, said he "categorically" rejected the possibility of fraud, arguing that every possible measure was taken to "guarantee" a free and fair vote.

Abdallah Djaballah came in third with 4.84 percent, and fifth and sixth place went to Trotskyite Louisa Hanoune -- the first woman to stand for president in Algeria or anywhere in the Arab world -- with 1.16 percent and nationalist Ali Fawzi Rebaine with 0.64 percent.

Some 10.5 million people of the 18-million-strong electorate cast ballots in the election, for a turnout of 59.26 percent, Zerhouni said.

Soon after polls closed on Thursday, Benflis denounced alleged "fraud that has begun to work" as he, Djaballah and Sadi had said they feared ahead of the vote.

French President Jacques Chirac and Morocco's King Mohammed VI were among the first to congratulate Bouteflika after the results were announced.

A Belgian senator who observed the vote, Anne-Marie Lizin, said it had been conducted by "European standards."

Lizin, who was among 120 international observers present for the vote, told AFP: "To us it was clear. What we saw during this election corresponds with European standards in terms of the procedures used."

She rejected "major" fraud charges as "not credible" while acknowledging that Bouteflika had enjoyed generous coverage by state television during the campaign.

However the head of a five-member observer team from the European Parliament, Pasqualina Neapoletano, told reporters here Tuesday that if one candidate won in a landslide, "that will mean that something's wrong."

Other observers came from the Organization of Security Cooperation in Europe, the Arab League, the United Nations and the African Union.

TERRA.WIRE