| Description | Left-wing, Arab/Islamic socialist party begun as a revolutionary organization founded with the express purpose of obtaining Algeria's independence from France, which held Algeria as a colony beginning in 1830, and in 1848, classified and formally incorporated it into France as the departments of Algiers, Oran, and Constantine. Upon independence from France on July 5, 1962, the party held absolute control of the new state, forming an autarchy led by party leader Ahmed Ben Bella from 1962 until his assassination during a coup d'état in 1965. Party leadership fell to his successor, Colonel Houari Boumédiène, who held absolute power in a one-party state until his death on December 27, 1978. After a new Constitution introducing a multi-party system was promulgated in 1989, the first free elections were held on December 26, 1991. The FLN was wiped out by the Islamic Salvation Front Party (FSI). Leaders of the vanquished FLN then engineered a military coup in January 1992 and banned the FSI on March 4, 1992. The FLN has been led by its general secretary, Abdelkarim Benmbarek, since November 13, 2023 [Front de libération nationale (FLN); جبهة التحرير الوطني; Tirni n Weslelli Aɣelnaw (Berber); officially registered as the National Liberation Front Party (Parti du Front de libération nationale, PFLN)]. |
