ALGIERS, Algeria ? Algeria’s president, an ally in the U.S. war on terror, overwhelmingly won re-election in a vote his defeated rival said Friday was a “sham.”

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was elected to a second term in a landslide — winning 83 percent of Thursday’s vote, the Interior Ministry said in announcing the results.

Former Prime Minister Ali Benflis was a distant second with 8 percent. He alleged there were irregularities “in thousands of polling stations across the country,” and vowed to appeal to the Constitutional Council that validates results.

“Never, even under one-party rule, has Algeria seen such a sham election,” said Benflis, who was prime minister from 2000 until Bouteflika fired him in May 2003.

International observers hailed the vote as a major sign of progress toward reform in a nation emerging from a murderous Islamic insurgency.

President Bush congratulated Bouteflika on his win and “the Algerian people for their dedication to building a democratic political system,” according to White House officials.

The State Department characterized Bouteflika’s landslide re-election as “free from fraud” and Algeria’s first democratic presidential contest.

French President Jacques Chirac also congratulated Bouteflika and said the heated election campaign “allowed the Algerian people to show its willingness to move forward on the path of democratic pluralism.”

Bouteflika has been trying to raise Algeria’s international profile and quell the 12-year insurgency that has claimed an estimated 120,000 lives.

Algerians watch re-elected President Abdelaziz Bouteflika speak on the news on a television Friday in a grocery store in Algiers. Bouteflika was re-elected during an election Thursday with 83 percent of the vote.

He sought to cool tempers following the heated campaign.

“We must now calm our zeal, forget the wounds that might have been caused,” the 67-year-old president said on television Friday night.

The army, a powerful force since Algeria gained independence from France in 1962 and a bulwark against the insurgency, for the first time had declared its neutrality. Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia, Bouteflika’s top ally, said the military kept its promise not to interfere.

“This is proof of a new democratic maturity,” he said.

Aside from Bouteflika and Algeria’s first head of state, Ahmed Ben Bella, all Algerian presidents have been former generals. In Thursday’s election, the army allowed soldiers for the first time to vote at regular polling stations, and not their barracks — a move seen as curbing military influence over the outcome.