Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algeria’s Longest-Serving President, Dies at 84

ALGIERS – Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who joined his country’s struggle against French colonial rule in the 1950s, rose to the post of foreign minister at 26, went into exile on corruption charges, and then returned to lead the nation out of civil war, has died, he was 84 years old.

Algerian state television reported his death on Friday but did not provide any further details.

Ousted from the presidency in 2019, Mr Bouteflika led Algeria for 20 years, longer than any of its predecessors.

He suffered a stroke in early 2013 and spent two and a half months in a French military hospital and many more months in recovery.

After the stroke, Bouteflika was rarely seen in public or on television, which gave many the impression that the country was ruled by its inner circle, which was suspected in numerous corruption scandals.

Despite his health problems, he insisted on running for a fourth term in April 2014, a decision that divided the country’s ruling elite, military and intelligence agencies. Algeria’s main opposition parties refused to vote, and when Bouteflika came to power with an unlikely 81 percent of the vote, they refused to recognize the result.

Nevertheless, he remained in power, ruled by written instructions and occasionally received foreign dignitaries.

Protests erupted in late February 2019 when it became known that Bouteflika would run for a fifth term in the April 18 election. Hundreds of thousands of protesters protested on the 1st “and” No fifth term! “Amid news reports that he had left the country for medical tests in Geneva.

In April the popular unrest had forced his resignation.

Mr Bouteflika was born to Algerian parents on March 2, 1937 in Oujda, Morocco, then a French protectorate, where he grew up and went to school. (His Moroccan beginnings were usually not mentioned in his official Algerian biography.)

When he was 20 years old, he joined the National Liberation Army in their uprising against the French colonial administration of Algeria and served in the so-called border army, which operated from Moroccan territory. He became a close assistant to the revolutionary leader Houari Boumediene.

After Algeria gained independence in 1962, Mr Bouteflika was appointed Minister of Youth and Sport in the government of Ahmed Ben Bella, Algeria’s first elected President. In 1963 he led Algerian delegations to negotiations with the French and was appointed Foreign Minister in the same year.

In 1965 he was a major player in a bloodless coup led by Mr Boumedienne that overthrew President Ben Bella. Mr Bouteflika headed the Foreign Ministry until Mr Boumedia’s death in December 1978. A talented and dashing foreign minister, he led anti-colonial and non-interference policies, promoting Algeria as the leader of the non-aligned movement and a founding member of the African Union.

Mr Bouteflika was temporarily named as a potential successor to Mr Boumedienne. That all changed when he was arrested and charged with the Court of Auditors for embezzling millions of dollars from the State Department budget over the years. He decided – or was forced – to go into exile abroad for six years.

In 1987 he returned to Algeria and rejoined the Central Committee of the National Liberation Front, the political arm of the independence movement. But he remained a behind the scenes figure for much of the 1990s, when the military and intelligence officials dominated the government amid Algeria’s war against Islamist insurgents.

The uprising began when the government canceled elections to stave off a landslide victory for the Islamist party Islamic Salvation Front, also known by the French acronym FIS

When the civil war ended, Mr Bouteflika returned to the front line. He ran for president in 1999 and was the only candidate left after six rivals resigned in protest, calling the conditions under which the elections were held unfair.

As president, he promoted the concept of “national reconciliation” and imposed a de facto amnesty for all opponents of the war, be they Islamists or members of the military. Both sides had been accused by human rights organizations of atrocities during the war, in which an estimated 200,000 Algerians were killed.

Mr Bouteflika then won three more elections, the last one in April 2014 after the Algerian constitution was amended to allow him an indefinite term. His supporters credited him for restoring peace and security to the country after a decade of ruinous war, claiming he was the only one who could unite the country subsequently. Opponents blamed him for the economic stagnation and the increasing corruption and nepotism as his rule grew longer; in the end, they criticized his refusal to relinquish power when his health deteriorated as selfish.

Nonetheless, he made sure that Algeria had an important influence on the regional affairs of North Africa. He worked discreetly with France and the United States in combating terrorism in the region and helped mediate conflict and political instability in neighboring Mali, Libya and Tunisia.

Mr Bouteflika was only briefly married and had no children. He leaves behind a brother, Said, who was imprisoned after Bouteflika resigned and convicted in 2020 of conspiracy against the state and undermining the military.

Amir Jalal Zerdoumi reported from Algiers and Carlotta Gall from Istanbul.