Muhammad Boudiaf

Muhammad Boudiaf (born June 23, 1919, M’Sila, Alg.—died June 29, 1992, Annaba) was an Algerian political leader who was a founder of the revolutionary National Liberation Front (FLN) that led the Algerian war of independence (1954–62), and, after a 27-year exile, the president of Algeria (1992).

Boudiaf fought in the French army in World War II, but by 1950 he was a central figure in the nationalist movement against France, and in 1954 he joined Ahmed Ben Bella on the FLN leadership council. After being captured and imprisoned by the French (1956–62), Boudiaf and Ben Bella were released to form a provisional government in newly independent Algeria, with Boudiaf as deputy premier. He opposed President Ben Bella’s autocratic rule, however, and after being interned for several months, he went into exile in Morocco (1964), where he managed a brick factory and denounced the increasingly corrupt FLN. In January 1992, with the Islāmic fundamentalists on the verge of winning parliamentary elections, he was invited to return as the head of a military-backed council of state. Although he appeared to have gained public support for his announced reforms, he was shot and killed while giving a speech; one of his bodyguards was suspected of the shooting.