Liamine Zeroual: The Algerian president who followed the straight and narrow

Former Algerian president Liamine Zeroual, who died on Saturday at the age of 84, will always be held in high esteem by Algerians, although many will never entirely forgive him.

The Algerian presidency announced “with sadness the death of former President of the Republic, the mujahid [freedom fighter] Liamine Zeroual, at the Mohamed Seghir Nekkache Military Hospital in Algiers [...] after a battle with a serious illness,” declaring three days of national mourning. 

Despite his retreat from political life in 1998, when he resigned as president, the departure of the unassuming former general from a modest background paved the way for Abdelaziz Bouteflika, his power-hungry successor, who himself would only step down in 2019, amid waves of popular protest.  

Ironically, Zeroual rejected offers from “deep state” power brokers, including figures from Algeria’s defunct secret services, to lead a transitional government after the 22 February protest movement prompted his successor’s resignation.

Born on 3 July 1941 in Batna, the capital of the Aures region in eastern Algeria that is historically inhabited by Berber Chaouis, Zeroual joined the National Liberation Army (ALN) at 16 and fought France during Algeria’s war of independence.

After independence in 1962, Zeroual continued his career in the newly formed People’s National Army (ANP). As one of the force’s earliest officers, he received training first in Egypt, then in the Soviet Union and France.  

A skilled man in the field and senior officer respected by both his troops and colleagues, Zeroual rose steadily through the army’s ranks, holding several key command positions throughout the 1980s.

In 1989, he was named commander of the land forces, a nomination that, given the weight of the Algerian army, is customarily a step towards a further position of high command: army chief of staff.

But Zeroual decided differently. He disagreed with the then-chief of staff, Khaled Nezzar, over proposals for army reorganisation. President Chadli Bendjedid sided with Nezzar, and Zeroual left the ANP.  

In 1990, Zeroual was appointed ambassador to Romania, a consolation prize not much to his liking. He only lasted a few months in Bucharest, telling close friends: “I’m not a bureaucrat.”

He chose, instead, to return to Batna, thereby avoiding the intrigues and tensions of Algiers.

President as civil war rages

By now, with the cancellation of the legislative elections in January 1992 and the subsequent rise to power of the Islamic Salvation Front, Algeria was gradually being engulfed in a civil war. 

In 1993, following the assassination of President Mohamed Boudiaf the previous June, the army, already committed to combating attacks by armed groups, opened up a new front: to restore confidence in government institutions.

Zeroual was accordingly contacted by Nezzar, now a member of the High Council of State (HCS), the provisional governing body set up by the military following the annulled legislative elections in December 1991.

He was first appointed minister of defence, and then chairman of the HCS, before becoming head of state in 1994, when Bouteflika refused to assume power despite the overtures of the generals and headed back to Geneva, Switzerland, where he was based.

Nezzar, in his memoir Le Sultanat de Bouteflika, wrote: “The departure of Abdelaziz Bouteflika left us with only one option: Liamine Zeroual. Liamine Zeroual, bolstered by the council’s show of confidence, agreed out of a sense of duty to become head of state.”

In November 1995, in response to Zeroual’s successful presidential bid, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) published a statement “promising coffins for the Algerians who went to the polls”. They likened Zeroual’s seat at El Mouradia Palace, the presidential palace in Algiers, to the “seat of hell”.  

Those closest to Zeroual say the worst months of his life were spent there, as across the country the GIA massacred civilians, sparing no one, including babies and pregnant women. He emerged from office a broken man, one former officer said.

Zeroual also had to deal with the intrigues of the ruling elite: the secret services wanted to grant amnesty to members of the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS, the armed branch of the FIS) in return for an end to attacks - but the president was staunchly opposed to the secret negotiations.

“Surrender is an option, amnesty is not,” he repeatedly told top aides.

In September 1998, after many months of virulent press coverage against General Mohamed Betchine, a strongman of the regime and top counsellor to the president, Zeroual threw in the towel.

Algerians looked on in amazement as a sober-looking Zeroual announced an early end to his presidential term and called for new elections, which ultimately resulted in Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s rise to power.

The new president adopted wholeheartedly the military’s plan to end the civil war, though he said it was his own. 

'Time to make way for the march of the people'

Zeroual retreated once more to Batna. Photographs on social media show him walking in his hometown, like an ordinary citizen. 

Indirectly, however, he was steadfast in his disapproval of Bouteflika’s party line and boycotted official ceremonies of state.

“The decision I made, in entire freedom, to give up my political career for good was based on my conviction that a concrete change in leadership is needed for the advancement of the political and democratic practices of Algeria,” Zeroual wrote in 2009, in response to rumours that he would run against Bouteflika.

“I put no stock whatsoever in the notion of the ‘man of the moment’, and I never did.”

Later, in 2014, amid talk of a fourth term of office for the ailing Bouteflika - who had been absent from public view since 2012 - Zeroual condemned Bouteflika’s record in a public letter and urged the president to hand power over to the upcoming generations. 

“Above all, we need to remember: the next presidential mandate is our last chance for true transition in Algeria,” Zeroual warned.  

And then, on 22 February 2019, hundreds of thousands of Algerians took to the streets calling for the end of the Bouteflika regime and a new government.

In Batna, during the weekly Friday protests, demonstrators chanted Zeroual’s name as they marched past his home. Though he stepped outside to show his recognition, the political upheaval soon found its way into his private life. 

On 30 March, four days before the president’s resignation, Lieutenant General Mohamed Mediene, the former head of Algeria’s defunct Intelligence and Security Department (DRS), reached out to Zeroual on behalf of the outgoing president’s brother and advisor, Said Bouteflika, asking him to lead a transitional government.

But Zeroual turned down the offer. “I expressed my full confidence in the maturity of Algeria’s millions of demonstrators,” he wrote in a letter made public on 2 April, hours before Bouteflika stepped down. “It was time to make way for the march of the people, who had become masters of their own destiny.”

In the same letter, the former general also made a concise and lacklustre appraisal of the Algerian political regime. 

“The political system of Algeria has failed since its independence to listen to the people, to bring about necessary reforms, to improve itself and to meet the expectations of the courageous citizens of Algeria who took to the streets on 22 February 2019 to demand democracy and reconcile Algeria with its historic past.”