Bouteflika reaped 83.5 percent of a vote that was expected to be a hard-fought duel with his former right-hand man Ali Benflis, who scored a mere 7.93 percent in results announced Friday.

Benflis immediately cried foul, charging "rampant fraud" and telling AFP that North Korean strongman Kim Il Sung "couldn't have done better," without indicating how he intended to contest the results.

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

After the powerful military, the traditional arbiter in Algerian politics, took the unprecedented step of declaring itself neutral in the election, many Algerians sensed that their vote could make a difference.

In addition, electoral laws were liberalized to enable party officials to track votes, and some 120 international observers were on hand for the first time.

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 Bouteflika's towering score 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 claim, accusing his rivals of wanting to "disobey the popular will" and courting "grave dangers for the entire nation."

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

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.

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

US President George W. Bush offered his congratulations to Bouteflika following his overwhelming victory, the White House said in a statement.

"The president congratulates President Bouteflika on his re-election. These elections represent another step on the road toward democracy in Algeria," the White House said.

Earlier Friday, the State Department said it had no reason to question the credibility of the results.

"Preliminary statements by (international) observers indicate that election-day processes were generally transparent and free from fraud," deputy spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters, adding: "We have no reason to question or to doubt those assessments."

At the same time, Ereli urged the Algerian authorities to investigate the fraud allegations "in a transparent and timely manner."

A Belgian senator who observed the vote, Anne-Marie Lizin, told AFP: "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.

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 for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Arab League, the United Nations and the African Union.

TERRA.WIRE