Mahfoud Nahnah

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Mahfoud Nahnah (1942-2003) (arabic:محفوظ نحناح) was the leader of the Islamist political party Movement of Society for Peace in Algeria.

Born in Blida on January 27, 1942, he studied literature at the University of Algiers, and became a teacher of Arabic after independence in 1962. Influenced by Egyptian professors there, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood.

In 1976, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for cutting telephone wires in an act of opposition to the National Charter of that year. He was freed four years later, and helped found the El Islah Oual Irchad (Reform and Guidance) charitable association with Mohammed Bouslimani, as well as the Islamic Preaching League with Ahmed Sahnoun, uniting major figures of the Algerian Islamist movement such as Abbassi Madani and Mohammed Saïd. However, he decided not to join the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), opposing its founding.

On December 6, 1990, after the FIS' victory in local elections, he established his own party: Hamas (later renamed Movement of Society for Peace, or MSP.) Seeing FIS as overambitious to the point of hubris, he instead emphasized the importance of gradual, step-by-step change and reform from within; he would suggest that the military and the West were not ready to allow Algeria even to become a full democracy, let alone an Islamic state.

His caution ensured that his party remained legal after the military coup of 1992, and in November 1995 he ran for president (with FIS banned), coming second to General Liamine Zeroual with about 25% of the vote. He attempted to run again in 1999, but was disqualified by the courts for not having fought in the Algerian War of Independence despite being born before July 1942 (Algerian Constitution, article 73.)

He died of leukemia on June 19, 2003 at 61 years of age. He was succeeded as head of the MSP by Bouguerra Soltani.