The former Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika died at 84. The presidential office made it known in a note. Weakened and tired after a serious blows immediately in 2013, Bouteflika resigned in April 2019 following protests against his candidacy for the fifth term presidential. A veteran of the war for the independence of Algeria, the former head of state ruled the North African country for two decades, but in the last years of his life – thanks to his poor health – he was rarely seen in public. Bouteflika was president for 20 years before being kicked out of street riots when he announced he wanted to run for a fifth term.
He was born on March 2, 1937 in Oujda, Morocco, into a family originally from Tlemcen, western Algeria. At 19, he joined the National Liberation Army (ALN), the military wing of the FLN, which fought against the French colonial presence in Algeria. In 1962 he became Minister of Youth, Sports and Tourism in the first government of President Ahmed Ben Bella. Then he was Foreign Minister for 16 years (in the Ben Bella and Boumèdiène governments). Between 1981 and 1987 he was removed from power and ended up in exile first in Dubai and Geneva.
In 1999 he was elected President of the Republic, after all his opponents had withdrawn, denouncing the conditions under which the vote had been organized. After a few months he had the amnesty of the Islamists approved in a referendum after the civil war of the 90s. He was then re-elected president in 2004 and also in 2009 and 2014, thanks to a revision of the Constitution which no longer limits the maximum number of presidential terms to two.
In 2005, the first health problems began, with a gastric haemorrhage that forced Bouteflika to an emergency hospitalization in Paris. Eight years later he suffered a stroke, which left him with severe after-effects. On April 2, 2019, he resigned as president, pushed by the army chief afterwards six weeks of mobilization massive “Hirak” against his attempt to run for a fifth term.
Never has an Algerian president been in power for so long. Bouteflika took the helm of Algeria in 1999, crowned by an image of a savior in a country torn by civil war. Twenty years later he was ruthlessly overthrown by the army, the pillar of the regime, under the pressure of an unprecedented protest movement.