Algerian President Bouteflika resigns following weeks of mass protests

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika resigns.

Algeria’s President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has submitted his resignation, state news agency APS said on Tuesday, following weeks of mass protests against his rule.

The ailing, 82-year-old leader stood down shortly after the army chief of staff demanded immediate action to remove him from office.

“There is no more room to waste time,” state news agency APS quoted Lieutenant General Ahmed Gaed Salah as saying.

On Monday, Bouteflika, who was in power for 20 years, had said he would quit before the end of his term on April 28.

But a protest leader and opposition parties rejected this as insufficient, while hundreds of students marched through the capital Algiers to demand to replacement of a political system widely seen as incapable of significant reform.

Bouteflika has rarely seen in public since he suffered a stroke in 2013.