Long-Time Former Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika Dies at 84
Posted on 09/19/2021
Abdelaziz Bouteflika ruled Algeria as president from 1999 until his resignation in April 2019 under pressure from the military and its intelligence community. By 2019, large protests across Algeria swarmed the country. When he left the presidency, Bouteflika stayed at a residence in western Algiers.
He was known as Boutef by Algerians.
Born on March 2, 1937, Abdelaziz Bouteflika died on September 17, 2021 at the age of 84 from cardiac arrest in Zeralda, Algeria.
Algeria is a former French colony and gain independence from France in 1962. At the young age of 28, Abdelaziz Bouteflika was Algeria’s minister of foreign affairs. Bouteflika became president of Algeria in 1999 after a decade of civil war that killed around 200,000 people and ran on support for his amnesty offer to Islamist armed fighters. Bouteflika went on to be elected for three more consecutive five-year terms. Bouteflika suffered a mini-stroke in April 2013 that affected his speech, and he was forced to use a wheelchair. He won re-election in 2014. Street protests emerged in 2019 over his bid to run for a fifth presidential term.