Ex-president of Algeria Bendjedid dies aged 83

Algeria’s former president Chadli Bendjedid died of cancer yesterday, aged 83, the APS news agency reported. Bendjedid had been admitted to the Ain Naajda military hospital in the capital more than a week ago. He was one of Algeria’s longest-serving presidents, holding office from 1979 to 1992, when he was forced from power when the army stepped in to stop Islamists from winning the country’s first multi-party legislative elections. His advisers included current UN-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. Bendjedid kick-started the democratisation of government institutions in Algeria, notably by promulgating a pluralist constitution in 1989. Born on July 1, 1929, in El Tarf district in north-eastern Algeria, Bendjedid was a career soldier who fought alongside French forces in Indochina but later joined the National Liberation Front in the fight for independence from France. After independence in 1962 he remained in the army, rising to the rank of colonel. When Colonel Houari Boumedienne, who had taken power in a coup, died in 1978 the army picked Bendjedid, as the highest-ranking officer, to succeed him. Bendjedid opened up the statist economy to private sector investment and foreign trade and licensed dozens of opposition parties. But his liberalisation of the economy was blamed for driving inflation. Falling oil and gas prices compounded the hardship, which triggered massive youth riots in 1988. The political freedoms, meanwhile, profited mainly the Islamic Salvation Front, which won the first round of the country’s first multiparty elections in 1991. Bendjedid said he was ready to co-operate with the Front but the army forced him to resign. More than 150,000 people were killed in the ensuing civil war between the state and Islamists. Bendjedid’s death comes three weeks before the scheduled publication of his memoirs, in which he had promised to “tell all” about his resignation and other events. President Abdulaziz Bouteflika has declared eight days of mourning.