BEIRUT _ Algeria's longtime President Abdelaziz Bouteflika ended his term as ruler of the North African nation, state media reported Tuesday, following weeks of mass protests that called for the end of his almost 20-year tenure.
"President of the Republic Abdelaziz Bouteflika has officially notified (the) president of the Constitutional Council of his decision to end his term as President of the Republic," said a curt statement from the official Algeria Press Service on Tuesday evening.
Bouteflika's resignation came one day after he said he would end his fourth term before it was set to expire April 28.
The 82-year-old leader had infuriated Algerians earlier this year when he declared he would seek a fifth term in April's presidential elections.
Once a charismatic politician who helped the country emerge from a civil war in the 1990s, he had suffered a stroke in 2013, rendering him unable to walk or even announce his candidacy. He was receiving treatment in Geneva at the time.
That announcement spurred street protests comprising tens of thousands of people. Despite repeated concessions, including canceling plans for a fifth term and extending his current tenure until a new constitution could be drafted, the demonstrations grew, calling on Bouteflika to "step down and nothing more."
In recent days, several of his allies, including the army's chief of staff Lt. Gen. Ahmed Said Salah, had called for the government to activate constitutional Article 102, which would make the speaker of Algeria's upper house of parliament, the Council of the Nation, leader for 90 days.
In that period, presidential elections would be held.
But many opposition figures view the army's role, or that of any governmental body for that matter, with suspicion.
Most of the protesters are young people across the political spectrum, who, despite Algeria's hydrocarbon riches, face unemployment and lack of services; the majority of their leaders are double their age.
They have called not just for Bouteflika's ouster, but that of the family members, political cronies and military officials around him, known collectively as "Le Pouvoire," or the Power.
