Topic: Abdelaziz Bouteflika

Abdelaziz Bouteflika (Arabic pronunciation: ; Arabic: عبد العزيز بوتفليقة‎) (born March 2, 1937) is the ninth President of Algeria. He has been in office since 1999. He has continued emergency rule and presided over the end of the bloody Algerian Civil War in 2002. More recently, thousands in Algiers have marched calling for his resignation in the 2010–2011 Algerian protests.

Abdelaziz Bouteflika was born on March 2, 1937 in Oujda, Morocco. He was the first child of his mother and the second child of his father (Fatima, his half-sister, preceded him). His father (Ahmed Bouteflika) and mother (Mansouria Ghezlaoui) originated from the region of Tlemcen. 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 was raised in Oujda, where his father had emigrated as a youngster. He successively attended three schools there: "Sidi Ziane", "El Hoceinia" and the "Abdel Moumen" high-school, where he reportedly excelled academically. He was also affiliated with Kadiri Zaouia in Oujda.