FFINALLY rumors are true. For years, Algerians have whispered about the health of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, their president from 1999 to 2019. After suffering a stroke in 2013, he was rarely seen in public, which has often been implied that he was dead. When the whispers got too loud, officials rolled him into his wheelchair to sit in front of the cameras, blank stare in his eyes. People wondered who was really responsible. In 2019, they had had enough of the masquerade and toppled the old man.

Mr. Bouteflika died on September 17 at the age of 84. The young people who make up the bulk of Algeria’s population will likely remember him as this decrepit president and lament that little has changed since his ouster. It is telling that the government buried him in a cemetery for independence fighters, with little of the honors bestowed on former rulers.

Older Algerians may remember Mr. Bouteflika with more affection. He was barely an adult when he joined the National Liberation Army in the war against French rule. A year after independence in 1962, he became the Algerian Prime Minister for Foreign Affairs, still in his mid-twenties. He will hold the position for 16 years. Witty and dashing in his three-piece suits, Mr. Bouteflika helped make the country an influential member of the Non-Aligned Movement and a beacon of the anti-colonial struggle, earning him the nickname “the Mecca of the United Nations.” revolutionaries ”.

Che Guevara traveled to Algeria in the hope of causing revolutions in Africa. A young Nelson Mandela received military training from Algerian soldiers. Mr. Bouteflika, as President of the UN General Assembly, invited Yasser Arafat to address the forum in 1974, a historic moment for the Palestinian cause. When Carlos the Jackal took oil ministers hostage in an attack on OPEC headquartered in Vienna in 1975, the terrorist requested to be airlifted to Algiers. Mr. Bouteflika met him and negotiated the release of some of the hostages.

After taking over the presidency in 1979, Mr. Bouteflika left Algeria to avoid corruption charges (which were eventually dropped). He returned but kept a low profile during the Algerian civil war in the 1990s, when some 200,000 people were killed in fighting between the Islamists and the military. In 1999, the ruling cabal of generals and security men, known as the the power (power), turned to him. Five months after winning a rigged presidential election, Bouteflika passed a referendum on national reconciliation which granted amnesty to Islamists and militiamen. Criticism of the conduct of the army was prohibited. Many attribute the merit to him for having brought Algeria out of its “black decade”.

The regime will invoke civil war and the need for stability whenever it wants to justify its repression. Unfair elections took place: Mr. Bouteflika won four. The power siphoned off the country’s vast hydrocarbon wealth, while young people struggled to find work. Public frustration had been growing for years when the regime announced in 2019 that Bouteflika would run for a fifth term. Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets chanting “Bye-bye, Bouteflika”. Eventually, the regime gave in. Slumped in his wheelchair, the president forwarded his resignation letter to a colleague. It was the last time most of the audience saw him.

Yet all hope that Mr. Bouteflika’s resignation would bring real change has faded. The army remains the dominant power in Algeria. Abdelmadjid Tebboune, a former prime minister considered the choice of generals, was elected president in 2019. The ballot was shunned by most Algerians. Meanwhile, the number of political prisoners is believed to be on the rise. The government tried to sow discord in the pro-democracy movement, known as the Hirak. He accuses opposition groups and Morocco, with which he recently severed diplomatic relations, of having fomented unrest.

Sometimes the government still uses Mr. Bouteflika, but now as a scapegoat. The Covid-19 has taken its toll and the economy continues to stagnate. With few answers, officials also point the finger at the wickedness of France or other foreign conspirators. Most Algerians, born after independence, are not moved by these tired anti-colonial stories. They want Mr. Bouteflika’s regime to expire with him. ■

This article appeared in the Middle East and Africa section of the print edition under the title “Bye-bye, Bouteflika”