Ali Benflis (; born 8 September 1944) is an Algerian politician who was Head of Government of Algeria from 2000 to 2004. In 2003, he became the general secretary of the National Liberation Front party. Benflis was a candidate in the 2004 presidential election, but the poll resulted in the re-election of Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Benflis ran yet again as an independent candidate in the 2014 Algerian presidential elections held on 17 April 2014. The result was that Abdelaziz Bouteflika was reelected as president with 81.53% of the votes, with Benflis ending as runner-up with 12.18%.
Early life
Benflis was born on 8 September 1944 in Batna, which is the fifth largest city in Algeria. He is of Chaoui Berber origin. When he was 13 years old, Benflis lost his father and older brother during the Algerian War. Benflis went to primary school in Batna, before earning his high school diploma from Hihi El Mekki High School in Constantine.
Political career
Benflis successively held the positions of General Secretary at the office of the Algerian President, as well as Chief of Staff at the Presidential Cabinet. After that, he was appointed Head of the Government and Secretary-General of the FLN Party, and it was during this post when he ran for president in the 8 April 2004 election. The results of that election were largely seen as distorted by fraud.
Ali Benflis is a veteran human rights activist. He is a founding member of the Algerian Human Rights League, which was set up on 11 November 1987 by the Minister of the Interior and Major-General Larbi Belkheir, with the aim of counteracting the . Candidate website.
Algerian Interior Minister Taieb Belaiz announced on 18 April that Bouteflika had won 81.53% of the vote, while Benflis was second placed with 12.18%. The turnout was 51.7%, down from the 75% turnout in 2009.
{| class=wikitable style=text-align:right
!colspan=2|Candidate
!Party
!Votes
!%
|-
|bgcolor="#DC143C"|
|align=left|Abdelaziz Bouteflika||align=left|National Liberation Front||8,332,598||81.53
|-
|bgcolor="#DDDDDD"|
|align=left|Ali Benflis||align=left|Independent||1,244,918||12.18
|-
|
|align=left|Abdelaziz Belaid||align=left|Front for the Future||343,624||3.36
|-
|bgcolor="#ED1C24"|
|align=left|Louisa Hanoune||align=left|Workers' Party||140,253||1.37
|-
|bgcolor="#720A0B"|
|align=left|Ali Fawzi Rebaine||align=left|Ahd 54||101,046||0.99
|-
|bgcolor="#000000"|
|align=left|Moussa Touati||align=left|Algerian National Front||57,590||0.56
|-
|align=left colspan=3|Invalid/blank votes||1,087,449||–
|-
|align=left colspan=3|Total||11,307,478||100
|-
|align=left colspan=3|Registered voters/turnout||21,871,393||51.70
|-
|align=left colspan=5|Source: Interior Ministry
|}
After the polls closed, Benflis criticised the election as having been marked by "fraud on a massive scale." The turnout figures were also criticised for allegedly being inflated.
2019 presidential election
Ali Benflis is a candidate in the third attempted date for organising the 2019 Algerian presidential election, on 12 December 2019.