French Fifth Republic of the election on 9 January 1959. The new president began his office on that date, appointing Michel Debré as Prime Minister. The 1958 constitution also replaced the French Union with the French Community, which allowed fourteen member territories (these did not include Algeria) to assert their independence. 1960 became known as the "Year of Africa" because of this wave of newly independent states. Algeria became independent on 5 July 1962. The president was initially elected by an electoral college, but in 1962 de Gaulle proposed that the president be directly elected by the citizens, and held a referendum on
President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic The President of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic is the head of state of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), a government in exile based in the Sahrawi refugee camps of Tindouf, Algeria. From the declaration of independence on February 27, 1976 to August 1982, the head of state of the SADR was known as the Chairman of the Revolutionary Council. The office of the President of the SADR was established in August 1982, after a change in the constitution made by the fifth general congress of the Polisario Front, where it was