Algerian ex-Prime Minister Ali Benflis has announced he will run for president in next year’s election.
The 74-year-old Benflis was President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s campaign director in 1999 and was named prime minister in 2000.
He quit as prime minister in 2003 and unsuccessfully challenged Bouteflika in 2004 and again in 2014 and formed his own party in 2015, Talaie El Houriat, Arabic for Vanguard of Freedoms.
The 82-year-old President Bouteflika, who has yet to say whether he will seek a fifth term, has announced the election for April 18.
The former Prime Minister became the second official candidate after Retired General Ali Ghediri said on Saturday he would run for president.
Other potential candidates have until March 4 to register with the constitutional court.