Former Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is dead
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on June 15, 2015 in Algiers.
AFP PHOTO / POOL / ALAIN JOCARD
Text by: RFI Follow
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Algerian public television announced the death of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, reports Agence France-Presse.
He died this Friday at the age of 84.
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The news of the death of Abdelaziz Bouteflika was announced by a banner scrolling on Algerian national television, quoting a press release from the Presidency of the Republic: "Death of former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika".
Since his spectacular fall in April 2019 under pressure from the army and the street, the former head of state had remained entrenched in solitude in his medical residence in Zeralda, west of Algiers.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika was born in 1937 in Oujda, Morocco, where his father emigrated very young, but he does not forget his roots.
When in 1956, in the midst of the Algerian war, the separatists asked students to join the national liberation movement, he quickly joined the FLN.
He even became Colonel Boumédiène's private secretary.
In 1962, he was only 25 years old when Algeria obtained its independence.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika was appointed Minister of Youth and then Minister of Foreign Affairs, the youngest in this post in the world.
He would occupy it for 16 years, at a time when his country played an important role within the non-aligned movement.
On the death of his mentor Boumediene, he was removed from political life, prosecuted for embezzlement.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika lets the storm pass.
After years of a black decade, he ran for president in 1999 with the support of the military.
After two terms, he changes the Constitution, which allows him to stay in power for a third, then a fourth term that he will start in a wheelchair, weakened by a stroke.
Each time contested elections.
His downfall had become inevitable after weeks of massive protests against his desire to run for a fifth five-year term.
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To read also: Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the long decline of the hero of Algerian independence
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Algeria
Abdelaziz Bouteflika