Former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, ousted from power in 2019 after twenty years at the head of Algeria, died at the age of 84, a death that sparked embarrassed reactions from the authorities on Saturday September 18. and mixed from the street.
Omnipresent for two decades but almost invisible since a stroke in 2013, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who holds a record for longevity in power (1999-2019), died Friday in his residence in Algiers.
He had given no sign of life since protests by the pro-democracy movement Hirak and the military forced him to resign on April 2, 2019.
During the night, the presidency was satisfied with a terse press release announcing the death of ex-president Bouteflika, "at his place of residence at 10 pm" local.
It then took several hours for the authorities to react by decreeing that the flags would be half-masted "for three days" from Saturday.
A decision taken by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, after "the death of the former president, the Moudjahid (independence fighter, editor's note) Abdelaziz Bouteflika", according to a presidential statement.
Local radio and television reported the death briefly, without devoting any specials to it.
The radio stations continued to broadcast music and entertainment as the information appeared in snippets on the website of the government newspaper El Moudjahid.
"Peace to his soul, but he deserves no homage"
No official announcement was made on the date and location of the funeral.
Media have said that the former president would be buried on Sunday in the square of the martyrs of the cemetery of El-Alia, in the east of Algiers.
This is where all his predecessors rest, alongside the great figures and martyrs of the War of Independence (1954-1962).
Others said, citing sources close to his family, that he would be buried privately in a cemetery in Ben Aknoun, on the heights of the capital, where his mother and two of his brothers lie.
According to witnesses, preparations are underway around the Palais du Peuple, a ceremonial building in the center of Algiers, to welcome the remains of the former president before a funeral with all honors.
In the streets, Algerians have oscillated between acrimonious and ambivalent comments about his heritage.
"Peace to his soul. But he does not deserve any tribute because he has done absolutely nothing for the country," Rabah, a fruit and vegetable merchant in El Achour, on the heights of the capital, told AFP.
For Malek, a telecommunications worker, the ex-president "has been unable to reform the country despite his long reign".
"He was entitled to a golden life, including since he was ousted from power. But it is clear that his legacy is not the brightest," abounds Mohamed, a 46-year-old carpenter.
"A dispute"
Since his resignation in April 2019, the one Algerians colloquially called "Boutef" had locked himself in the solitude of his medical residence in Zeralda in Algiers, where he continued to enjoy all the privileges, according to media reports.
On the contrary, other Algerians interviewed in the street believe that the country has improved during his presidency, in an allusion to the reconciliation process after the black decade of civil war from 1992 to 2002 (200,000 dead).
"He was received in any country in the world," said Amer, 46, a diver in a restaurant, referring to his past as the former head of diplomacy under Presidents Ahmed Ben Bella and Houari Boumedienne.
Mustapha, a 19-year-old high school student, who only knew him as president, believes that he "brought positive things".
But for the specialist of the Arab world Hasni Abidi, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, driven from the spheres of power in 1979 by the "system", was in 1999 a "wounded and humiliated president, returned twenty years later to settle accounts".
He "had a dispute with Algeria," this expert from the CERMAM study center in Geneva told AFP.
"How else to understand the state in which the country finds itself after two decades of unchallenged rule."
With AFP
The summary of the week
France 24 invites you to come back to the news that marked the week
I subscribe
Take international news everywhere with you!
Download the France 24 application
google-play-badge_FR