|
the director of Algeria's top weapons and officers' training schools in the 1970s, he served as commander of the army's three most important military districts Tamanghasset, Bechar, and Constantine) during the 1980s. In 1988 he was promoted to general and named deputy chief of staff of the armed services. Military in 1989, and served briefly as ambassador to Romania.
After a two-and-a-half year retirement from public life Zeroual was named minister of defense in 1993 replacing Major-General Khaled Nezzar, formerly considered the most powerful member of the High Council of State. The High Council was the ruling body installed by the military in January 1992 after interrupting and then canceling elections in which the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), the most militant of Algeria's Islamic fundamentalist parties, was poised for victory.
While serving as defense minister, Zeroual oversaw the government crackdown on the FIS and other fundamentalist groups associated with acts of terrorism, while simultaneously attempting, but ultimately failing, to negotiate with imprisoned FIS leaders.
In January 1994 the High Council appointed Zeroual head of state. In November 1995 Zeroual won election to a five-year term as president in Algeria's first contested elections since independence. Voter turnout of more than 75 percent, in the face of FIS threats of violence, and endorsements by international observers that the elections were free and fair, helped to legitimize Zeroual's rule at home, and to placate pushed for democratic reform. Western donors who had pushed for democratic reform.
|
