Algeria’s new parliament took office on Thursday following June elections, dominated by status quo parties and independent figures backing President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
Independent former doctor and public health official Brahim Boughali, from the Berber Mozabite minority, was elected head of the 407-seat lower house with 295 votes.
The 57-year-old beat Ahmed Sadok from the Islamist MSP party, who took just 87 votes.
The June 12 elections were marked by record abstentionism amid boycott calls by the Hirak mass protest movement.
The poll was won by the National Liberation Front (FLN), which ruled Algeria for decades under a one-party system following its 1962 independence from France.