Bouteflika bows out

摘要

Even his critics found Abdelaziz Boute-flika's last moments as president difficult to watch. After two decades in power, the Algerian leader stepped down on April 2nd. Slumped in a wheelchair, dressed in a baggy djellaba robe instead of his usual three-piece suit, he looked like a doddering old man roused from bed in the middle of the night. He struggled even to hand his letter of resignation to the head of the constitutional committee (a stroke in 2013 left him an invalid). Mr Bouteflika styled himself a partisan and a politician who fought for Algeria's independence and led the country out of civil war. There was no glimpse of that man in his final public appearance as president, only a frail shell.