Shortly before midnight on September 17, news began circulating in Algeria that the country’s longest-serving former president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, had passed away. While tales of Bouteflika’s demise had arisen many times before, this time, the news was confirmed.
Pushed from office two years ago amid mass protests and already incapacitated by ill health for several years before that, Bouteflika had little direct influence over events in Algeria as of late. His death is unlikely to substantially shift the country’s trajectory, in large part because of just how rigid a system he and his generation of independence heroes already imposed upon Algeria during their lifetimes.
