Former Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika dies at 84 years of age
On Friday night, former Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika died at the age of 84, the victim of a long illness that had kept him since 2013 "unable to speak and move independently", the presidential cabinet said in a statement.
Bouteflika assumed the country's presidency in 1999 and resigned on 2 April 2019, following the start of the Hirak movement, a popular revolt in the Rif region that erupted after the death of the fishmonger Mouhcine Fikri. These protests turned into massive demonstrations against him, which also demanded the definitive fall of the military regime.
Born in the Moroccan city of Oujda in 1937 to Algerian parents, Bouteflika studied in Morocco before moving to Algeria after the country's independence to devote himself professionally to politics.
At the age of 19, the former president decided to leave school and join the National Liberation Army against the French occupation, which led him to take part in various battles and later to assume high positions in the leadership of the Algerian liberation revolution, according to SkyNews arabia.
After Algeria's independence in 1962, Bouteflika left the army and turned his career to politics after joining the government of Ahmed Ben Blla as Minister of Youth, Sports and Tourism at the age of 25.
Subsequently, after the death of the first foreign minister, Bouteflika took over the post and immediately became the world's youngest foreign minister at the age of 26.
In this vein, Ben Blla decided to remove him from the Foreign Ministry on 18 June 1965 so that a day later the then Minister of Defence, Houari Boumediene, staged a military coup, under the name of "Revolutionary Correction".
After almost a decade of civil war in Algeria, which plunged the country into the so-called "black decade", Bouteflika ran independently for the 1999 presidential elections following the resignation of President Liamine Zeroual.
Among his electoral promises, the former president pledged to end the violence of the war that had cost the lives of nearly 150,000 people and left behind economic losses of around 30 billion dollars. Thus, with the support of the army and the National Liberation Front, Bouteflika managed to win the presidency with 79% of the vote.
After his victory, he formalised the truce proposed by the Islamic Salvation Army to offer a process of dialogue and reconciliation that brought the conflict to an end on 6 June 1999.
In this sense, Bouteflika managed to win the popular trust of Algerians who credit him with ending the country's longest civil war.
As for his second term in office, Bouteflika managed to win the presidential elections again in 2004 after defeating former Prime Minister Ali Benflis, winning 84.99% of the vote to Benflis' 6.42%.
Following the passage of a constitutional amendment in 2008 that opened the door for him to run for a third term in the 2009 elections, Bouteflika's opponents criticised the amendment, claiming "that the amendment was an indication of his intention to remain president for life". Moreover, the 2009 elections were not without controversy as the president was accused of having won a "fraudulent election".
After suffering a stroke in 2013, his public appearances were reduced and he never again addressed the population directly in speeches, raising suspicions in Algerian society about his true state of health.
In 2019, the government's announcement that Bouteflika would run for a fifth consecutive term prompted the population to unleash multiple street protests that led to the resignation of Algeria's longest-serving president and the country's most influential figure during Algerian independence.
