Former Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika died on Friday at the age of 84, state television said. Since his fall in April 2019 under pressure from the army and the road, Bouteflika had remained entrenched in solitude in his residence in Zeralda, west of Algiers. His downfall had become inevitable after weeks of mass demonstrations against his desire to run for a fifth five-year term.
Bouteflika was president for 20 years before being kicked out. He had suffered a severe stroke in 2013 and had since begun to appear less and less in public, but still remained in power until two years ago. “Overwhelmed” by the so-called Arab Spring, in 2019 the elderly and sick Algerian rais had initially announced his intention to run for a fifth term for president and then took a step back after the Hirak movement’s street protests and the shoulder of the military.
The current Algerian president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, was elected in December 2019.