Abdelaziz Bouteflika

Abdelaziz Bouteflika (Arabic: عبد العزيز بوتفليقة‎) (born March 2, 1937) is the ninth President of Algeria. He has been in office since 1999. He continued emergency rule until 24 February 2011, and presided over the end of the bloody Algerian Civil War in 2002. More recently, thousands in Algiers have marched calling for his resignation during the 2010–2011 Algerian protests following the successful popular uprising in Tunisia to oust Ben Ali.

He has also served as president of the United Nations General Assembly.

Family

Abdelaziz Bouteflika was born on March 2, 1937 in Oujda, Morocco. He was the first child of his mother and the second child of his father (Fatima, his half-sister, preceded him). His father (Ahmed Bouteflika) and mother (Mansouria Ghezlaoui) originated from the region of Tlemcen. Bouteflika has three half-sisters (Fatima, Yamina, and Aïcha), as well as four brothers (Abdelghani, Mustapha, Abderahim and Saïd) and one sister (Latifa). Saïd serves as Abdelaziz Bouteflika's personal physician, and is said by some to be an important figure in Bouteflika's inner circle of advisers.

Early years and War of Independence

Bouteflika was raised in Oujda, where his father had emigrated as a youngster. He successively attended three schools there: "Sidi Ziane", "El Hoceinia" and the "Abdel Moumen" high-school, where he reportedly excelled academically. He was also affiliated with Kadiri Zaouia in Oujda.

In 1956, Bouteflika went to the village of Ouled Amer near Tlemcen and subsequently joined -at the age of 19- the Army of National Liberation which was a military branch of the National liberation Front party. He was militarily instructed at the "Ecole des Cadres" in Dar El Kebdani, Morocco. In 1957-1958, He was designated a controller of the Wilaya V, making reports on the conditions at the Moroccan border and in west Algeria, but later became the administrative secretary of Houari Boumédienne. He emerged as one of the closest collaborators of the influential Boumédienne, and a core member of his Oujda group. In 1962, at the arrival of independence, he aligned with Boumédienne and the border armies in support of Ahmed Ben Bella against the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic.

From : www.wikipedia.org