Crowds in Algeria sacked voting stations on Thursday and the police used force to break up demonstrations, as the authorities went ahead with a presidential vote in the face of a popular boycott by a movement that toppled a president early this year.

The police beat back protesters with truncheons, but large crowds protesting the election continued to assemble in central Algiers. A polling station in the city center was stormed, forcing a temporary suspension of the vote, and unrest was reported around polling stations in the mountainous Kabylie region, traditionally hostile to the authorities.

The vote is the first since a popular uprising — mass protests denouncing pervasive corruption — chased out Algeria’s long-ruling president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika in April. An “interim government” of his former allies was quickly installed, backed by the army.