Liamine Zeroual (born 3 July 1941) was President of Algeria from 31 January 1994 to 27 April 1999, succeeding Ali Kafi and preceding Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
Biography[]
Liamine Zeroual was born on 3 July 1941 in Batna, French Algeria to a family of Sunni Muslim Berbers, and in 1957 he joined the FLN during the Algerian War against France. He received training in Cairo, Moscow, and Paris, and in 1975 he became the leader of a military school in Batna, and by 1988 he was a General of the Algerian Army after holding many military commands. In 1990 he quit the army after disagreeing with President Chadli Bendjedid and served as ambassador to Romania, but in 1992 he rejoined the army after Bendjedid resigned. In July 1993 he became Minister of Defense, and on 31 January 1994 he was elected as President of Algeria. He supported a partially-negotiated solution to the Algerian Civil War with the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and Armed Islamic Group (GIA), and he left office in the next elections in 1999. Abdelaziz Bouteflika succeeded him, and in 2009 Zeroual stated that he would not run for President of Algeria like the public wanted, while he said that Bouteflika running for President would not be in the best interest of democracy.