Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algerian President for almost 20 years, is dead.

Abdelaziz Bouteflika was an Algerian politician who served as President of Algeria for nearly 20 years, from 1999 until his resignation in 2019.

Bouteflika was a member of the National Liberation Front during the Algerian War. He was born on March 2, 1937, in Oujda, Morocco.

Algeria’s Strongman made history when he became Minister of Foreign Affairs in his early twenties. This record has not yet been broken.

Bouteflika was elected president of Algeria in 1999, as the country emerged from a decade of civil war that killed nearly 200,000 people, and was re-elected in 2004, 2009, and 2014.

He was elected president at the behest of the military.