Hocine Aït Ahmed

Hocine Aït Ahmed (in Kabyle: Ḥusin Ait Ḥmed) (b. 20 August 1926 in Ain El Hammam, Kabylie) is an Algerian politician. He had achieved a Ph.D. in law when he split from the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) in 1963 to found the Socialist Forces Front (FFS), a secularist Berber Socialist party. Later that year he was arrested and sentenced to death, after briefly leading an armed uprising against Ben Bella's one-party regime, but he managed to escape from El Harrach prison in 1966.

He returned to Algeria from exile in Switzerland after the riots of 1988, but left the country again after the assassination of President Mohamed Boudiaf. During his presidential campaign in 1999, he suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized.

Following the rise of the Kabyle Grassroots movements and the exile of his aide Essaid Haddadou, his movement diminished in importance. However, the FFS remains active as an opposition party in Algerian politics, and Aït Ahmed remains an important figure in Algerian politics -- the last of the FLN's historical founders alive.