Abdelaziz Bouteflika (French pronunciation: ; Arabic: عبد العزيز بوتفليقة‎) (born March 2, 1937) has been the President of Algeria since 1999.

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 (Fatima, his half-sister, preceded him). Bouteflika has three half-sisters (Fatima, Yamina, and Aïcha), as well as four brothers (Abdelghani, Mustapha, Abderahim and Saïd) and one sister (Latifa). Saïd serves as Abdelaziz Bouteflika's personal physician, and is said by some to be an important figure in Bouteflika's inner circle of advisers.

Bouteflika lived and studied in Algeria until he joined the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) in 1956, at the age of 19. He started as a controller, making reports on the conditions at the Moroccan border and in west Algeria, but later became the administrative secretary of Houari Boumédienne. He emerged as one of the closest collaborators of the influential Boumédienne, and a core member of his Oujda group. In 1962, at the arrival of independence, he aligned with Boumédienne and the border armies in support of Ahmed Ben Bella against the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic.