Abdelaziz Bouteflika (; ; 2 March 1937 – 17 September 2021) was an Algerian politician and diplomat who served as the seventh president of Algeria from 1999 until his resignation in 2019, following mass protests.
Before his stint as an Algerian politician, Bouteflika served during the Algerian War as a member of the National Liberation Front. After Algeria gained its independence from France, he served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1963 until 1979. He served as President of the United Nations General Assembly during the 1974–1975 session. In 1983 he was convicted of stealing millions of dinars from Algerian embassies during his diplomatic career.
In 1999, Bouteflika was elected president of Algeria in a landslide victory. He would win re-elections in 2004, 2009, and 2014. As President, he presided over the end of the Algerian Civil War in 2002 when he took over the project of his immediate predecessor President Liamine Zéroual, and he ended emergency rule in February 2011 amidst regional unrest. Following a stroke in 2013, Bouteflika had made few public appearances throughout his fourth term, making his final appearance in 2017.
Bouteflika resigned on 2 April 2019 amid months of mass protests opposing his candidacy for a fifth term. With nearly 20 years in power, he is the longest-serving head of state of Algeria to date. Following his resignation, Bouteflika became a recluse and died at the age of 84 in 2021, over two years after his resignation.
Early life and education
Abdelaziz Bouteflika was born on 2 March 1937 in Oujda, Morocco. He was the son of Mansouria Ghezlaoui and Ahmed Bouteflika from Tlemcen, Algeria. He had three half-sisters (Fatima, Yamina, and Aïcha), as well as four brothers (Abdelghani, Mustapha, Abderahim, and Saïd) and one sister (Latifa). Saïd Bouteflika, 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 military 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 to leading the Malian Front in the Algerian south and became known for 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.
Career
Following 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 Minister for Foreign Affairs.
He was 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 also served as president of the United Nations General Assembly in 1974 and of the seventh special session in 1975, becoming the youngest person to have done so. Algeria at this time was a leader of the Non-Aligned Nations Movement. He had discussions there with Henry Kissinger in the first talks between the United States and Algerian officials since the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
On 12 November 1974, in his capacity as president of the General Assembly, Bouteflika suspended the then Apartheid government of South Africa from participating in the 29th session of the UN. The suspension was challenged by the US, but upheld by the assembly by a vote of 91 to 22 on 13 November.South Africa Is Suspended By U.N. Assembly, 91-22. New York Times. 13 November 1974.
In 1981, he was charged with 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. 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".El Moudjahid newspaper, 9 August 1983
Succession struggle, corruption 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.
In 1981, Bouteflika went into exile in Switzerland fleeing corruption charges. In 1983, he was convicted of corruption. After six years abroad, in 1989, the army brought him back to the Central Committee of the FLN, 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 was 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, after Zéroual unexpectedly stepped down and announced early elections, Bouteflika successfully ran for president as an independent candidate, supported by the military. 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 (involving amnesties for Islamist guerrillas) 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 presided over the Organisation of African Unity 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 Jacques 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, 2004–2009 On 8 April 2004, Bouteflika 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 Kabylia 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.
The first year of Bouteflika's second term implemented the Complementary Plan for Economic Growth Support (PCSC), which aimed 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 totaled $60 billion of spending over the five-year period. Bouteflika also aimed to bring down the external debt from $21 billion to $12 billion in the same time. He also obtained from Parliament the reform of the law governing the oil and gas industries, despite initial opposition from the workers unions. However, Bouteflika subsequently stepped back from this position and supported 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.
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 (Gazprom, Itera, and Lukoil) access to joint fossil-fuel ventures in Algeria.
In 2004 Bouteflika organised the Arab League Summit and became President of the Arab League for one year; however his calls for reform of the League did not gain sufficient support to pass during the Algiers summit.
At the March 2005 meeting of Arab leaders, held in Algiers, Bouteflika spoke out strongly against Israel, "The Israelis' continuous killing and refusal of a comprehensive and lasting peace, which the Arab world is calling for, requires from us to fully support the Palestinian people." Despite criticism from the west, specifically the United States, Bouteflika insisted that Arab nations would reform at their own pace.