Former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria has died. That reports the Algerian state television. Bouteflika was elected president four times and was in power for 20 years until 2019. In that year he ran for a fifth term, but after weeks of mass protests and under pressure from the military, he declined. He resigned later that year. Bouteflika was 84 years old.
The cause of his death has not been disclosed. It is known that he had a fragile health. Since a stroke in 2013, he has hardly been seen in public.
Bouteflika fought with France in the 1950s and 1960s in the War of Independence. After Algeria’s independence in 1962, he became Minister of Youth and Sports and later of Foreign Affairs.
He left Algeria in 1981 after political opponents accused him of corruption. But when that was eventually annulled, he returned in 1987.
In 1999 he won the presidential election with an overwhelming majority. Algeria was suffering from a civil war at the time. Bouteflika cracked down on the Islamic insurgents and came up with a national reconciliation plan, with which he largely quelled the violence.
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