Algeria: Youthful country dependent on oil and gas

ALGIERS,

Algeria, where half of the population is under 30, is suffering from financial and social woes linked to the fall in oil prices, from which it gets 60 percent of its budget.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on March 11 announced he was abandoning his bid to stand for a fifth term, following weeks of mass protests against his re-election bid.

On April 2 Bouteflika submitted his resignation with immediate effect, state media reported.

Here are some key facts about the North African country of 42 million people:

Algeria became a French colony in 1830 after three centuries of Ottoman domination.

Independence came in July 1962 after a bloody independence war which lasted nearly eight years.

In September 1963, prime minister Ahmed Ben Bella of the National Liberation Front (FLN), which had led the struggle against French colonial rule, became the founding president of independent Algeria.

In 1965 the FLN's Houari Boumediene overthrew and jailed Ben Bella, thereafter running Algeria as a one-party state until his death in 1978.

Colonel Chadli Bendjedid was then elected president, a post he held until 1992.

In October 1988, protests rocked the capital Algiers, prompting the authorities to declare a state of emergency.

'ISLAMIC SALVATION FRONT'

The army clamped down on demonstrators, but introduced political reforms which brought an end to the single-party system.

However, when the country held its first multi-party legislative poll in 1991, the army stepped in to prevent the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) winning and setting up an Islamic state.

That sparked a civil war which killed some 200,000 people between 1992 and 2002, with the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) claiming responsibility for many civilian massacres.

At the height of the war, Bouteflika won the 1999 presidential election.

He was backed by the army and launched a reconciliation programme that saw thousands of Islamist fighters lay down their arms.

'STROKE'

Bouteflika, who had joined the FLN aged 19, went on to win re-election in 2004 and 2009.

The president suffered a stroke in 2013 which confined him to a wheelchair, but despite his poor health Bouteflika was elected for a fourth term the following year.

His mobility and speech severely reduced, he has since rarely appeared and no longer speaks in public.

His bid for a fifth term at April 2019 elections sparked massive street protests and saw him lose the support of key loyalists, including armed forces chief Ahmed Gaid Salah.

'RESIGNATION'

He finally submitted his resignation with immediate effect on Tuesday, state media reported.

Socialist until the early 1990s, Algeria's economy remains subject to a high level of state intervention.

The oil wealth subsidises fuel, water, health care, housing and basic goods.

Algeria is Africa's third biggest crude producer and the world's ninth producer of natural gas.

Those exports make up 95 percent of external revenue and contribute 60 percent of the state budget.

OIL PRICES

Falling oil prices have hit the country's economy hard.

In late 2018 analysts at the International Crisis Group estimated that urgent reforms were needed to diversify the economy to avoid a crisis in 2019.

It said the country can count on an external debt lower than two percent of GDP and on support from partners.

Part of the Maghreb, Algeria is Africa's biggest country.

Desert makes up more than five sixths of its territory, but 80 percent of the population lives on the coast, including in the capital Algiers. Nearly 54 percent of the population is younger than 30.

Algeria counts some 10 million Berbers, most living in Kabylie, a rebellious mountainous region to the east of Algiers.

The language of former colonial power France is not one of the official languages, which are Arabic and the Berber language Tamazight, but the country counts many francophones.