Ben Bella, Muhammad Ahmed (1918– )
Algerian politician, a founder and leader of the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), the first prime minister of independent Algeria 1962–63, and its first president 1963–65. He carried out land reforms to benefit landless farmers, but his centralization of power and systematic purges were among the reasons behind his overthrow in 1965 by army strongman Houari Boumédienne.
Following his overthrow in 1965, he was held under house arrest until 1980, when he was allowed to leave for exile in Switzerland. In 1985 he founded a new party, Mouvement pour la Démocratie en Algérie (MDA), and returned to Algeria in 1990 after nine years in exile. The cancellation of the 1991 legislative elections led to his exile for the second time, and his party was banned in 1997.
| Born into a Sufi Muslim family in a village in western Algeria during French colonial rule, he was a footballer with Marseille in the 1930s and served in the Free French army, joining the campaign to liberate Italy during World War II. After founding the FLN, he was imprisoned in France 1956–62. |
