Abdelaziz Bouteflika was a dominant figure in Algerian politics for more than six decades. Most notably, he was its longest-serving president, from 1999–2019. He died from cardiac arrest on 17 September at his medically equipped state residence at Zeralda at the age of 84. He had been in poor health since 2005, with a report dated 2008 confirming that he had stomach cancer. His health declined rapidly after he suffered a stroke in 2013. He was buried at the El Alia Cemetery in Algiers on 19 September.
Although he will be known as the country’s longest serving president, he had all the opportunities to be remembered as its greatest ever president, but that has not and will not be the case. Instead, his death has caused the state visible embarrassment. It is keen to turn the page on his long controversial reign. Some sources have said that the Bouteflika family vigorously opposed the organisation of a solemn funeral in order not to find themselves at the heart of new controversies on Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s place in the Algerian collective memory. As it was, he was buried without the honours to which any former president should be entitled and with the state media, including ENTV, giving his burial ceremony, held amidst a small and intimate gathering, as little coverage as reasonably acceptable.
Neither has the country observed any national mourning. The authorities decided only that the national flag should be flown at half-mast across the national territory for three days. Following President Ben Bella’s death the country observed eight days of official mourning. For Boumédiène it was 40 days; eight for Chadli Benjedid, seven days for Mohamed Boudiaf; and for Ali Kafi, who only ruled the country for two short years, it was eight days.
Nor were Bouteflika’s remains exhibited at the People’s Palace before being buried, as have been the bodies of all his predecessors and even General Ahmed Gaïd Salah, his ex-Chief of Staff and the effective strongman ruler of the country from the time of Bouteflika’s resignation in April until his own death a little over eight months later.
Bouteflika was born on 2 March 1937 in Oujda, French Morocco. He was the son of Mansouria Ghezlaoui and Ahmed Bouteflika, who had emigrated from Tlemcen to Oujda as a youngster. 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, served his brother’s presidency as a special counsellor from 1999, while effectively taking over most of the running and decision-making of the presidency for the last few years of Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s rule, when he was medically incapacitated and unable to rule. Saïd Bouteflika is now serving a long prison sentence.
Bouteflika joined the Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN) in 1956 at the age of 19, receiving military training in Morocco. during 1957–58, before being given administrative responsibilities as a controller of Wilaya V (the Oranais), and then becoming the administrative secretary to Houari Boumédiène, the commander of Wilaya V and later (1960) chief of staff of the ALN. In 1960, Bouteflika was assigned to head the Malian front. His nom-de-guerre, Abdelkader al-Mali, survives today, as does the malicious but probably accurate allegation that he never fired a shot in the Liberation war, being kept out of harm’s way by Boumédiène.
Following independence in 1962, Bouteflika remained closely aligned to Boumédiène. In 1962, he became deputy for Tlemcen in the Constituent Assembly and minister for youth and sport in Ahmed Ben Bella’s government, before being appointed minister for foreign affairs in 1963. He was a prime mover in Boumédiène’s military coup, which overthrew Ben Bella in June 1965. He remained foreign minister until Boumédiène’s death in 1978.
Algeria’s intellectually brilliant young foreign minister became a significant figure on the world scene during this period, as he represented Algeria’s leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement. He also served as president of the UN General Assembly in 1974 and of the seventh special session in 1975, becoming the youngest person to do so.
Bouteflika, one of two main candidates, felt he was the natural successor to Boumédiène, when he died unexpectedly in 1978. However, the army opted for a compromise cabinet in Colonel Benjedid Chadli. In 1981 Bouteflika was convicted, but later pardoned, of embezzling more than US$20 million in today’s currency during his diplomatic career. He spent much of following years in exile until being called back by the army to stand in the 1999 presidential election, from which all other candidates withdrew because of its fraudulent nature. At the time, he was studying in Switzerland for a PhD on world poverty and debt.
Bouteflika is credited with bringing an end to the civil war of the 1990s. But he will be remembered by many as the president who wasted Algeria’s potentially golden years. In April 1999, the price of a barrel of oil was US$13. In 2008, it reached US$147 and the price did not collapse until late in 2014. He had the opportunity, which he failed to grasp, of transforming Algeria. Instead he turned it into the ultimate rentier state, soon to become under his tutelage a ‘mafia state’. To some extent, he used oil revenues wisely, ridding the country of burdensome foreign debt and building up foreign exchange reserves. However, of the approximately US$1,000 billion of oil revenue earned during his presidency, some US$300 billion remains unaccounted for.
Unfortunately, Bouteflika began to see himself as another ‘president for life’ and amended the constitution accordingly to enable him to achieve that goal. After four terms in office, the fifth was a step too far. Algerians had had enough of his increasingly corrupt rule and the power vacuum caused by his ill-health. In February 2019, the Hirak protests demanded that he did not stand for a fifth term and he was forced to resign on 2 April. By that time, his illness was such that it is debatable whether he was aware of what was going on and what was being said and done in his name.
In many respects, Bouteflika was a flawed genius, a man of remarkable intellect, talent and diplomatic skills, who failed to seize the opportunity that the army and the country’s natural resources gave him to build a ‘new Algeria’. The most positive thing that might be said about his passing is that the country, though in a deep political and economic crisis by the time of his resignation, was still in better shape than it is today.
A more detailed and analytical assessment of his life and presidency is published in Algeria Politics & Security – 21.09.21.
