Liamine Zéroual (born 3 July 1941) was
PresidentThe President is the head of state and chief executive of Algeria, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Algerian armed forces.-Powers:The President is the chairman of the Council of Ministers and the High Security Council. The President is elected to a five year term and is constitutionally...
of
AlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country on the Mediterranean sea, the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area.It is bordered by Tunisia in...
from 31 January 1994 to 27 April 1999.
He was born in
BatnaBatna is the main city of Batna Province, Algeria. With a population of 285.800 it is the fifth largest city in Algeria...
and joined the
National Liberation ArmyThe Armée de Libération Nationale or ALN was the armed wing of the nationalist Front de Libération National during the Algerian War of Independence...
in 1957, at the age of 16, to fight French rule of Algeria. After independence, he received training in
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
,
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
, and
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. In 1975, he took command of a military school in Batna, then in 1981 of the Cherchell Military Academy. He was then made commander of the Tamanrasset military region in 1982, then the Moroccan border in 1984, then
ConstantineConstantine is the capital of Constantine Province in north-eastern Algeria. Slightly inland, it is about 80 kilometers from the Mediterranean coast....
in 1987. He became a general in 1988, then head of ground forces in 1989. After disagreeing with President
Chadli BendjedidChadli Bendjedid was President of Algeria from February 9, 1979 to January 11, 1992. He served in the French Army as a noncommissioned officer and fought in Indo-China when the rebellion began there in 1954. He defected to the National Liberation Front at the beginning of the Algerian War of...
about proposals for army reorganisation, he quit in 1990, and briefly became ambassador to
RomaniaRomania is a country located in Southeastern and Central Europe, North of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Almost all of the Danube Delta is located within its territory...
. However, after Bendjedid was deposed by the military coup of January 1992, his career prospects became more promising. In July 1993, he became Minister of Defense; in January 1994 he was promoted to head of the
High Council of StateThe High Council of State in Algeria was a collective presidency set up by the military in 1992 following the annulled elections in December 1991.It consisted of:*General Khaled Nezzar *Ali Kafi*Ali Haroun*El-Tidjani Haddam*Mohamed Boudiaf...
. In November 1995, he was elected President, a post which he retained until the next elections.
He was reputed to be politically dialoguist, supporting a partly negotiated solution to the
Algerian Civil WarThe Algerian Civil War was an armed conflict between the Algerian government and various Islamist rebel groups which began in 1991. It is estimated to have cost between 150,000 and 200,000 lives....
.
Although some urged Zéroual to run in the
2009 presidential election- Removal of term limit :The Council of Ministers announced on 3 November 2008 that a planned constitutional revision would remove the two-term limit on the Presidency that was previously included in Article 74, thereby enabling President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to run for a third term...
, he said in a published statement on 14 January 2009 that he would not run, while also suggesting that it was not in the best interests of democracy for President
Abdelaziz BouteflikaAbdelaziz Bouteflika has been the President of Algeria since 1999.- Family :Abdelaziz Bouteflika was born on March 2, 1937 in Oujda, French Morocco. He was the first child of his mother and the second child of his father...
to run for a third term.
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