Algeria's ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced on Monday that he would be dropping his bid for a fifth term in office, scrapping the upcoming elections altogether after weeks of protests against his candidacy, AFP reports.
"There will not be a fifth term" and "there will be no presidential election on April 18," Bouteflika announced in a message carried by the official Algerian APS news agency.
He added he was responding to "a pressing demand that you have been numerous in making to me."
Demonstrations against Bouteflika's bid for another term have brought tens of thousands of protesters onto the streets for each of the last three Fridays, with smaller demonstrations taking place on other days, noted AFP.
The president vowed "to hand over the duties and prerogatives of the president of the republic to the successor freely chosen by the Algerian people," but gave no date for new elections.
In a broader political shake-up, interior minister Noureddine Bedoui replaced the unpopular Ahmed Ouyahia as prime minister and has been tasked with forming a new government, according to APS.
Algeria was one of the countries to be hit by protests during the so-called “Arab Spring” in 2011, and hundreds were arrested by riot police as they called for the Bouteflika’s resignation.
Bouteflika subsequently lifted a state of emergency that was imposed in 1992, as Islamist militants waged war over the government's decision to ignore elections that gave a majority to a Muslim party.
On Monday, the country's new deputy prime minister Ramtane Lamamra said in an interview with RFI radio that the next elections would be "absolutely free" and called on all Algerians in the face of this "historic responsibility" to work together "for a better future".
Bouteflika, whose rare public appearances since he suffered a stroke in 2013 have been in a wheelchair, returned to Algeria on Sunday after spending two weeks at a hospital in Switzerland.
Although credited with helping foster peace after Algeria's decade-long civil war, Bouteflika has faced criticism for alleged authoritarianism. He became president in 1999, and has clung on to power despite his ill health.
He was elected for a fourth term in April 2014 with 81.5 percent of the vote, despite not campaigning.