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Algeria buried Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the oldest president of the North African country, on Sunday in a cemetery for his independence heroes, but without the honors accorded to his predecessors.
Bouteflika died on Friday at the age of 84, after a career that took him from the youngest foreign minister in the world to one of the oldest heads of state, but which ended in a fall from power with humility.
The veteran strongman had been living as a recluse since leaving office in April 2019 after the military abandoned him after weeks of street protests sparked by his candidacy for a fifth presidential term.
His muted funeral, no decent lies and only three days of national mourning instead of eight, reflected a mixed legacy that left many Algerians indifferent to the ceremony.
“Frankly, I have better things to do than follow the funeral of a president who left the country in a sorry state,” Fares, a retiree from the financial sector, told AFP in the capital Algiers.
Bouteflika, who first served as foreign minister in the mid-1960s, rose to the presidency in 1999 amid a wave of popular support as his offer of amnesty to Islamist militants helped end a war ten-year calendar.
But despite economic progress amid high oil prices in the early years of his rule, Algeria, a crude exporter, subsequently saw increasing corruption and unemployment, which became the main drivers of the country’s pro-democracy movement. Hirak who finally ousted him.
Muted ceremony
Bouteflika, pictured on March 26, 2009, was president for 20 years. By Fayez Nureldine (AFP / File) Sunday, during his funeral, in the presence of his successor President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, the Algerian minister for independence, Laid Rebiga, read a eulogy.
An armored vehicle towed his flag-covered coffin onto a cannon carriage adorned with flowers and escorted by lines of police officers on motorcycles.
Members of the government and foreign diplomats attended the ceremony, guarded by security officers in blue and black uniforms.
The procession traveled from Bouteflika’s retirement home to the cemetery east of downtown Algiers, as passers-by filmed it with their cell phones.
Only journalists from the Algerian national public media had access to the ceremony, which was not broadcast live, unlike the fanfare of previous presidential deaths.
The People’s Palace, where other presidents had been laid down, appeared to have been prepared to display his remains before burial, but that was canceled.
The ceremony was not broadcast live, and in the streets of Algiers, residents showed little interest.
“This funeral is a non-event,” Islam, a 45-year-old postman said. “The Algerians seem to have forgotten Bouteflika, or at least turned the page on his reign.”
Isabelle Werenfels, a Maghreb specialist at the German SWP institute, told AFP that the online vitriol against Bouteflika had likely made the country’s leaders nervous.
“Among the political, administrative and economic elites, there are quite a few who are products or profiteers of the Bouteflika era,” she said.
Poor health and protests
Algerian police officers surround demonstrators on February 22, 2019 during a demonstration against Bouteflika’s candidacy for a fifth term. By RYAD KRAMDI (AFP / File) Bouteflika wanted to outdo his mentor, the country’s second president, Houari Boumediene, by strengthening Algeria’s regional influence and turning the page on a civil war in the 1990s that left around 200,000 dead, said Louisa Dris Ait Hamadouche, professor of political science at the University of Algiers.
Instead, “state institutions have never been so weakened, so divided or so discredited,” she said.
And his funeral contrasts with that of Boumedienne in 1978, which saw gunshots and brought together hundreds of thousands of people in mourning.
Nicknamed “Boutef” by Algerians, Bouteflika was known to wear his signature three-piece suit even in the sweltering heat, and gained respect as foreign minister in the 1970s as well as for helping to foster peace. after the civil war.
Algeria was largely spared the uprisings that swept across the Arab world in 2011, which many attribute to memories of the civil war and increased state handouts.
But the graft under Bouteflika and his circle has left Africa’s largest nation in terms of surface area, with vast oil wealth, poor infrastructure and high unemployment.
Bouteflika has also been criticized by human rights groups and opponents who accused him of being authoritarian.
He suffered a mini-stroke in April 2013 which affected his speech, and he was forced to use a wheelchair, barely appearing in public during a presidential campaign the following year.
His 2019 candidacy for a fifth term sparked protests that quickly turned into the pro-democracy Hirak movement that ultimately toppled him.
Some personalities of the Bouteflika era were ultimately imprisoned, including his powerful brother Saïd, who was however allowed to attend the funeral on Sunday. But many members of the old guard still rule the country.
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