Since Algeria’s longtime leader, Bouteflika, was deposed in the year, grew general Ahmed Gaed Salahs influence.
Algeria’s powerful army chief, general Ahmed Gaed Salah, death, 79 years, informs the state tv, without to specify the reason for his death.
He appeared to devote the country’s longtime leader, Abdelaziz Bouteflika earlier in the year.
Salahs death comes at a time when the country for months, has been the scene of large demonstrations. People who have gone on the street, has demanded that the country’s powerful elite to take a step back and to the powerful military keeps itself out of politics.
the General was to push through, that there would be presidential elections 12. december to find a successor for Bouteflika. The choice was unpopular among many algerians, who saw it as the old elites attempt to cling to power.
Bouteflika tried earlier in the year to be chosen for the fifth time as president. It got hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets to demand his departure.
It came in april, and with him out of the game, grew Salahs political power.
He had been head of the army in 15 years, and he was one of the veterans from the Algerian oprørskrig against the French colonial power about 60 years ago. He was seen as a guardian of a system that has to ensure the army a significant force in Algeria.
/ritzau/AFP
