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Veteran Algerian politician Abdelkader Bensalah, who briefly served as interim president after his mentor Abdelaziz Bouteflika was forced to step down in 2019, died on Wednesday at the age of 79, the president’s office said.
His death after what friends called a long illness came just days after that of Bouteflika, who died on Friday at the age of 84.
His funeral will take place Thursday after midday prayer at El Alia cemetery east of downtown Algiers.
Bensalah was speaker of the upper house of parliament when the military forced Bouteflika to resign in April 2019 after his announcement that he intended to run for a fifth term sparked mass protests in the streets.
Under the constitution, this made him an interim president, but his close relationship with Bouteflika saw thousands of protesters oppose his elevation to the highest post.
Bensalah decided not to stand for the eventual election of a permanent successor, and he passed the baton to his winner Abdelmadjid Tebboune after only eight months as president.
Even before Bouteflika’s resignation, Bensalah had often replaced the ailing president, who was rarely seen in public after a stroke in 2013.
As a youth, Bensalah fought in the struggle for Algerian independence, then worked as a journalist in the state media for a decade before being elected to parliament in 1977.
He chaired the lower house foreign affairs committee for 10 years and then served as ambassador to Saudi Arabia and spokesperson for the foreign ministry.
It was Bouteflika himself who appointed his protege president of the upper house in 2002, a position he held for the next 17 years.
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