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Algerians vote Thursday in a presidential election, with incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika widely expected to win despite his chronic health problems, warnings of fraud and opposition calls for a boycott. More than 260,000 police have been deployed to protect the 50,000 polling booths set up across Africa's largest country, where 23 million Algerians are eligible to vote in a contest between six candidates after the polls open at 0700 GMT. But he faces the damaging possibility of a low turnout, with youth activists and opposition parties loudly calling on Algerians to snub the poll, and many questioning whether Bouteflika is fit to rule. Unable to take to the campaign trail himself, Bouteflika delegated that task to a team of loyalists, who announced on Wednesday that he would vote in person -- as the constitution requires -- at an Algiers polling station, after some local media doubted his ability to do so.
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