Polls have opened in Algeria for parliamentary elections being billed as the fairest in 20 years and featuring 500 international observers, The Associated Press reports.

There are 44 political parties competing for 462 seats across this vast oil-rich North African nation of 35 million people.

The government has repeatedly described the May 10 voting as vital to the country's future. But most Algerians have shown little interest.

The main competitors are two government-affiliated parties squaring off against a three-party bloc of Islamists known as the "Green Alliance." No one party is expected to dominate.

The last fair elections, in 1991, were dominated by the Islamic Salvation Front party, but the military canceled voting, triggering a more than decade-long civil war that killed an estimated 200,000.