Abdelaziz Bouteflika


Abdelaziz Bouteflika is an Algerian politician who served as President of Algeria for 20 years, from 1999 to his resignation in 2019.
As President, he presided over the end of the bloody Algerian Civil War in 2002 when he took over the project of Liamine Zéroual, and he ended emergency rule in February 2011 amidst regional unrest. Prior to becoming president, he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1963 until 1979 and as President of the United Nations General Assembly for a 1-year term from 1974.
Bouteflika resigned on 2 April 2019 after months of mass protests. With nearly 20 years in power, he was the longest-serving head of state of Algeria.

Early years and War of Independence

Abdelaziz Bouteflika was born on 2 March 1937 in Oujda, French Protectorate in Morocco. He is the son of Mansouria Ghezlaoui and Ahmed Bouteflika from Tlemcen, Algeria. He has three half-sisters, as well as four brothers and one sister., 20 years his junior, would later be appointed special counselor to his brother in 1999. Unlike Saïd, who was raised mostly in Tlemcen, Abdelaziz grew up in Oujda, where his father had emigrated as a youngster. The son of a zaouia sheikh, he was well-versed in the Qur'an. He successively attended three schools in Oudja: Sidi Ziane, El Hoceinia, and Abdel Moumen High Schools, where he reportedly excelled academically. He was also affiliated with Qadiriyya Zaouia in Oujda.
In 1956, Bouteflika went to the village of Ouled Amer near Tlemcen and subsequently joined—at the age of 19—the National Liberation Army, which was a military branch of the National Liberation Front. He received his militarily education at the École des Cadres in Dar El Kebdani, Morocco. In 1957–1958, he was designated a controller of Wilaya V, making reports on the conditions at the Moroccan border and in west Algeria, but later became the administrative secretary of Houari Boumédiène. He became one of his closest collaborators and a core member of his Oujda Group. In 1960, he was assigned with leading the Malian Front in the Algerian south and became known with his nom de guerre of Abdelkader al-Mali, which has survived until today. In 1962, at the arrival of independence, he aligned with Boumédienne and the border armies in support of Ahmed Ben Bella against the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic.

Post-independence political career

After independence in 1962, Bouteflika became deputy for Tlemcen in the Constituent Assembly and Minister for Youth and Sport in the government led by Ahmed Ben Bella; the following year, he was appointed as Minister for Foreign Affairs. He was later a prime mover in the military coup led by Houari Boumediene that overthrew Ben Bella on 19 June 1965. Bouteflika continued as Minister for Foreign Affairs until the death of President Boumédienne in 1978.
He has also served as president of the United Nations General Assembly in 1974 and of the seventh special session in 1975. While in these posts he came in for severe criticism from the United States for what it regarded as politically partisan decisions. Algeria at this time was a leader of the Non-Aligned nations movement. He discussed there with Henry Kissinger in the first talk between US and Algerian officials since the diplomatic relations between these two countries have resumed.
In 1981, he was sued for having stolen Algerian embassies' money between 1965 and 1979. On 8 August 1983, Bouteflika was convicted by the Court of Financial Auditors and found guilty of having fraudulently taken 60 million dinars during his diplomatic career. In his defence Bouteflika said that he "reserved" that money to build a new building for the foreign affairs ministry, but the court judged his argument as "fallacious". In 1979, just after the death of Boumédiène, Bouteflika reimbursed 12,212,875.81 dinars out of the 70 million dinars that was deposited in a Swiss bank. Although Bouteflika was granted amnesty by President Chadli Bendjedid, his colleagues Senouci and Boudjakdji were jailed. After the amnesty, Bouteflika was given back his diplomatic passport, a villa where he used to live but did not own and all his debt was erased. He never paid back the money "he reserved for a new foreign affairs ministry's building".

Succession struggle and exile

Following Boumédienne's unexpected death in 1978, Bouteflika was seen as one of the two main candidates to succeed the powerful president. Bouteflika was thought to represent the party's "right wing" that was more open to economic reform and rapprochement with the West. Colonel Mohamed Salah Yahiaoui represented the "boumédiennist" left wing. In the end, the military opted for a compromise candidate, the senior army colonel Chadli Bendjedid. Bouteflika was reassigned the role of Minister of State, but successively lost power as Bendjedid's policies of "de-Boumédiennisation" marginalised the old guard.
After six years abroad, the army brought him back to the Central Committee of the FLN in 1989, after the country had entered a troubled period of unrest and disorganised attempts at reform, with power-struggles between Bendjedid and a group of army generals paralysing decision-making. In 1992, the reform process ended abruptly when the army took power and scrapped elections that were about to bring the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front to power. This triggered a civil war that would last throughout the 1990s. During this period, Bouteflika stayed on the sidelines, with little presence in the media and no political role. In January 1994, Bouteflika is said to have refused the Army's proposal to succeed the assassinated president, Mohamed Boudiaf; he claimed later that this was because the army would not grant him full control over the armed forces. Instead, General Liamine Zéroual became President.

First term as President, 1999–2004

In 1999, Zéroual unexpectedly stepped down and announced early elections. The reasons behind his decision remain unclear, but it is widely claimed that his pro-reconciliation policies towards the Islamist insurgency had incurred the wrath of a hard-line faction in the armed forces; or that some other disagreement with the military, which still dominated politics, lay behind the schism. Bouteflika ran for president as an independent candidate, supported by the military. He was elected with 74% of the votes, according to the official count. All other candidates withdrew from the election immediately prior to the vote, citing fraud concerns. Bouteflika subsequently organised a referendum on his policies to restore peace and security to Algeria and to test his support among his countrymen after the contested election. He won with 81% of the vote, but this figure was also disputed by opponents.

Foreign policy

Bouteflika was also active on the international scene, presiding over what many have characterised as Algeria's return to international affairs, after almost a decade of international isolation. He presided over the African Union in 2000, secured the Algiers Peace Treaty between Eritrea and Ethiopia, and supported peace efforts in the African Great Lakes region. He also secured a friendship treaty with nearby Spain in 2002, and welcomed president Chirac of France on a state visit to Algiers in 2003. This was intended as a prelude to the signature of a friendship treaty.
Algeria has been particularly active in African relations, and in mending ties with the West, as well as trying to some extent to resurrect its role in the declining non-Aligned movement. However, it has played a more limited role in Arab politics, its other traditional sphere of interest. Relations with the Kingdom of Morocco remained quite tense, with diplomatic clashes on the issue of the Western Sahara, despite some expectations of a thaw in 1999, which was also the year of King Mohamed VI's accession to the throne in Morocco.

Second term as President, 2004–09

On 8 April 2004, he was re-elected by an unexpectedly high 85% of the vote in an election that was accepted by Western observers as a free and fair election. This was contested by his rival and former Chief of Staff Ali Benflis. Several newspapers alleged that the election had not been fair. Frustration was expressed over extensive state control over the broadcast media. The electoral victory was widely seen as a confirmation of Bouteflika's strengthening control over the state, cemented through forcing General Mohammed Lamari to resign as his chief of staff and replacing him "with Ahmed Salah Gaid, his close friend and ally."
Only 17% of people in Kabylie voted in 2004, which represented a significant increase over the violence-ridden legislative elections of 2002. Country-wide, the registered turnout rate was 59%.

Reconciliation plan

During the first year of his second term, Bouteflika held a referendum on his "Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation", inspired by the 1995 "Sant'Egidio Platform" document. The law born of the referendum showed that one of Bouteflika's goals in promoting this blanket amnesty plan was to help Algeria recover its image internationally and to guarantee immunity to institutional actors.

Economic policies

The first year of Bouteflika's second term also featured a new five-year plan, much larger this time drafted. The Complementary Plan for Economic Growth Support aims for the construction of 1 million housing units, the creation of 2 million jobs, the completion of the East-West highway, the completion of the Algiers subway project, the delivery of the new Algiers airport, and other similar large scale infrastructure projects. The PCSC totals $60 billion of spending over the five-year period. Bouteflika also aims to bring down the external debt from $21 billion to $12 billion in the same time. He has also obtained from Parliament the reform of the law governing the oil and gas industries, despite initial opposition from the workers unions. However, Bouteflika has since stepped back from this position, supporting amendments to the hydrocarbon law in 2006, which propose watering down some of the clauses of the 2005 legislation relating to the role of Sonatrach, the state owned oil & gas company, in new developments. It also proposes new provisions enabling the country to benefit from windfall taxes on foreign investors in times of high prices. Bouteflika has also put up for sale 1300 public sector companies, and has already achieved privatisation of about 150 of them, mainly in the tourism, food processing, cement, construction material and chemical industries.

Foreign policy

During Bouteflika's second term he was sharply critical of the law—passed after the 2005 French riots—ordering French history school books to teach that French colonisation had positive effects abroad, especially in North Africa. The diplomatic crisis which ensued delayed the signing of a friendship treaty between the two countries.
Ties to Russia were strengthened and Russia agreed to forgive debts if Algeria began buying arms and gave Russian gas companies and guarding the country's independence in decision-making vis-a-vis the West, although simultaneously striving for good trade relations and non-confrontational political relations with the EU and USA.
President of Vietnam Nguyễn Minh Triết, on 16 July 2009, met with Bouteflika on the sidelines of the 15th Non-Aligned Movement summit in Egypt. President Triet and Bouteflika agreed that the two countries still have great potential for development of political and trade relations. Triet thanked the Algerian government for creating favourable conditions for the Vietnam Oil and Gas Group to invest in oil and gas exploration and exploitation in Algeria.

Hospitalization in 2005 and later

Bouteflika was admitted to a hospital in France on 26 November 2005, reportedly suffering from a gastric ulcer hemorrhage, and discharged three weeks later. However, the length of time for which Bouteflika remained virtually incommunicado led to rumours that he was critically ill with stomach cancer. He checked into the hospital again in April 2006.
A leaked diplomatic cable revealed that, by the end of 2008, Bouteflika had developed stomach cancer.
In spring and summer 2013, Bouteflika stayed nearly four months in a hospital in Paris dealing with health problems.
Bouteflika was admitted to a clinic at Grenoble in France in November 2014.
As of early 2016, Bouteflika had not been seen in public for more than two years, and several of his close associates had not seen him for more than one year. It was alleged that he "can hardly speak and is said to communicate by letter with his ministers".
In November 2016, he was hospitalized in France for medical checks.

Constitutional amendment for a third term

Bouteflika appointed a new Prime Minister, Abdelaziz Belkhadem, in 2006. Belkhadem then announced plans that violate the Algerian Constitution to allow the President to run for office indefinitely and increase his powers. This was widely regarded as aimed to let Bouteflika run for president a third term. A referendum was originally scheduled for 2007, but cancelled for reasons never explained. In 2008, Belkhadem was again shifted out of the premiership and his predecessor Ahmed Ouyahia brought in, having also come out in favor of the constitutional amendment.
The Council of Ministers announced on 3 November 2008 that the planned constitutional revision proposal would remove the presidential term limit previously included in Article 74. The People's National Assembly endorsed the removal of the term limit on 12 November 2008; only the Rally for Culture and Democracy voted against its removal.

Third term as President, 2009–14

Following the constitutional amendment allowing him to run for a third term, on 12 February 2009, Bouteflika announced his independent candidacy in the 2009 presidential election. On 10 April 2009, it was announced that Bouteflika had won the election with 90.24% of the vote, on a turnout of 74%, thereby obtaining a new five-year term. Several opposition parties had boycotted the election, with the opposition Socialist Forces Front citing a "tsunami of massive fraud."

2010–12 Algerian protests

In 2010, journalists gathered to demonstrate for press freedom and against Bouteflika's self-appointed role as editor-in-chief of Algeria's state television station. In February 2011, the government rescinded the state of emergency that had been in place since 1992 but still banned all protest gatherings and demonstrations. However, in April 2011, over 2,000 protesters defied an official ban and took to the streets of Algiers, clashing with police forces. Protesters noted that they were inspired by the recent Egyptian revolution, and that Algeria was a police state and "corrupt to the bone".

2013 stroke

In 2013, Bouteflika suffered a debilitating stroke. A journalist, Hichem Aboud, was pursued for "threatening national security, terrtorial integrity, and normal management of the Republic's institutions" and his newspapers were censored, because he wrote that the President had returned from Val-de-Grâce in a "comatose state" and had characterized Saïd Bouteflika as the puppet-master running the administration.

Fourth term as President, 2014–2019

Following yet another constitutional amendment, allowing him to run for a fourth term, Bouteflika announced that he would. He met the electoral law requiring a candidate to collect over 60,000 signatures from supporters in 25 provinces. He very seldom appeared in person on the campaign trail. On 18 April 2014, he was re-elected with 81% of the vote, while Benflis was second placed with 12.18%. The turnout was 51.7%, down from the 75% turnout in 2009. Several opposition parties boycotted the election again, resulting in allegations of fraud.
Bouteflika cabled his congratulations to freshly-reelected Bashar al-Assad on 19 April 2014.
On 20 February 2017, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel canceled her trip to Algeria an hour before takeoff, reportedly because Bouteflika was suffering from severe bronchitis.
In June 2017, Bouteflika made a rare, and brief, appearance on Algerian state television presiding over a cabinet meeting with his new government. In a written statement, he ordered the government to reduce imports, curb spending, and be wary of foreign debt. He called for banking sector reform and more investment in renewable energy and "unconventional fossil hydrocarbons."
Bouteflika is wheelchair-bound and has not given a speech in public since 2014 due to aphasia following his stroke.

Candidacy for fifth term, protests and resignation

On 10 February 2019, a press release signed by long-ailing Bouteflika announcing he would seek a fifth consecutive term provoked widespread discontent. Youth protesters demanded his picture be removed from city halls in Kenchela and Annaba in the days before the national demonstrations on 22 February, organized via social media. Those in Algiers, where street protests are illegal, were the biggest in nearly 18 years. Protestors ripped down a giant poster of Bouteflika from the landmark Algiers central post office.
On 11 March 2019, after sustained protests, Bouteflika announced that he would not seek a new term. However, his withdrawal from the elections was not enough to end the protests. On Sunday, 31 March 2019, Bouteflika along with the Prime Minister Noureddine Bedoui who had taken office 20 days earlier, formed a 27-member cabinet with only 6 of the appointees being retained from the outgoing president administration. The next day, Bouteflika announced that he would resign by 28 April 2019. Acceding to demands by the army chief of staff, he ultimately resigned a day later, on 2 April 2019.

Honours

;National
;Foreign