Ahmed Ouyahia

Ahmed Ouyahia has been the Prime Minister of Algeria since 2008.  A Berber from Algeria's Kabylie region, Ouyahia served as a diplomat within Africa and to the United Nations; while he was ambassador to Mali in the early 1990s, he helped to negotiate terms of peace in that country's Tuareg Rebellion.  He subsequently became Prime Minister under Liamine Zeroual, stepping down from the position when Abdelaziz Bouteflika became president in 1998.

Soon after resigning the Prime Ministry, Ouyahia was elected leader of the National Rally for Democracy, a party he had helped to found while still Prime Minister. As Justice Minister in 2001, he promoted a law that would sentence anyone publishing material defaming Algerian political leaders to three years of jail. In 2003, Bouteflika appointed him Prime Minister once again; he resigned in 2006, but Bouteflika reinstated him for a third time in 2008.

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