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Abdelaziz Bouteflika in the 1999 election campaign: he remained Algerian head of state for two decades
Photo: - / AFP
Algeria's former head of state Abdelaziz Bouteflika has died after a serious illness at the age of 84.
The Algerian state television reported on Saturday night.
Bouteflika was the country's head of state between 1999 and 2019, but rarely appeared in public after a stroke in 2013.
In the West, Bouteflika was seen as a reliable partner in the fight against terror, in Algeria itself he was supposed to reconcile the country after a bloody decade of civil war - which he initially managed with the help of the military and political networks.
In the years of violent conflict between security forces and armed Islamist groups, it is estimated that around 200,000 people were killed between 1992 and 2002.
Under Bouteflika's rule, amnesty laws were passed for insurgent Islamists who renounced violence.
When the Arab Spring shook the authoritarian states in North Africa and the Middle East in 2011, the president, reviled by his opponents as a puppet of the military, demonstrated tactical skill.
While his colleagues in neighboring countries were promoting repression, Bouteflika announced reforms.
Although these were criticized by the opposition as inadequate, further protests initially failed to materialize.
To this day, human rights organizations criticize the repression of the opposition and the media in Algeria.
The military withdrew his support
Bouteflika's National Liberation Front (FLN) party won the parliamentary election in May 2012 by a clear margin.
He himself continued to rule with a hard hand.
Bouteflika also emerged as the clear winner from his fourth presidential election in 2014.
There had been resistance to his candidacy up to and including the security apparatus.
In the last few years of his tenure, the president, who was sitting in a wheelchair, rarely appeared in public.
Even the German Chancellor Angela Merkel had to cancel a visit at the last second in 2017 because Bouteflika's state of health did not allow him.
When Bouteflika announced that he would run for a fifth term in spring 2019, it sparked mass protests.
The demonstrators called for his departure from the government.
The military eventually withdrew his support and Bouteflika resigned a few days before the end of his fourth term.
However, the protests continued.
Thousands of people called for real political change and an end to corruption and mismanagement.
In the successor Abdelmadjid Tebboune at the head of the state and the government, many see the continuation of the old power elite Bouteflikas.
The economic situation did not initially improve even after its departure.
In the opinion of political observers, Bouteflica's actions were determined by three major guidelines: ending the civil war, ending Algeria's international isolation and restricting the power of the military.
Of these self-imposed tasks, he was able to achieve successes at least in the first two.
lov / AFP / dpa / Reuters