War, oil boom, repression marked dos Santos long rule, activists say

Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos delivering a speech at the closing ceremony of the 31st SADC summit in Luanda, Angola, on August 18, 2011. He has said he will step down as president. PHOTO | AFP

What you need to know:

  • At 74, and in poor health, dos Santos became president in 1979, making him Africa’s second-longest serving leader.
  • He is credited for leading Angola out of the war, moving away from Marxism and fostering a post-war oil boom and foreign investment surge that transformed Luanda.
  • Meanwhile, Unita chief Isaias Samakuva has said he will step down from party leadership after the election.

LUANDA

Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos’ announcement that he will step down brings to an end a 37-year authoritarian rule.

Though seldom seen in public, he has been a looming presence in daily life for as long as most Angolans can remember, maintaining fierce control over the country throughout its devastating civil war and oil boom.

At 74, and in poor health, dos Santos became president in 1979, making him Africa’s second-longest serving leader — one month shy of Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

Joao Lourenco, dos Santos’ defence minister, was named the ruling party’s candidate to run in the president’s place in August elections.

Until the 27-year civil war ended in 2002, dos Santos presided over a country torn apart by conflict as his MPLA government fought Unita rebels.

He is credited for leading Angola out of the war, moving away from Marxism and fostering a post-war oil boom and foreign investment surge that transformed Luanda.

But his rule has also been criticised as secretive and corrupt, with Angolans suffering abject poverty as his family and the elite enriched themselves.

Married to the glamorous former air hostess Ana Paula, who is 18 years his junior, his children include Isabel, who is head of the state-owned Sonangol oil company and reputed to be Africa’s richest woman — worth $3 billion.

“Against all odds, he has remained in power since 1979, overcoming war, elections and at the same time displaying a highly-refined political craftsmanship,” said Alex Vines of the British think tank Chatham House.

“He is a shrewd economic and political dealmaker with an instinct for survival.”

SAVIMBI KILLED
From humble beginnings as the son of a bricklayer, dos Santos joined MPLA as a teen and rose quickly through party ranks as a fighter during Angola’s struggle for independence from Portugal.

After stints in Kinshasa and Brazzaville, he went to Azerbaijan to study petroleum engineering and radar communications, returning fluent in Russian and French, in addition to his mother-tongue Portuguese.

In 1979, following the death of president Agostinho Neto, dos Santos — then planning minister — was sworn in as president.

A presidential election in 1992 was aborted before a second-round vote when his battlefield rival Jonas Savimbi claimed the vote was rigged.

The civil war reignited until Savimbi was killed in 2002.

The parliamentary election in 2012 gave MPLA another large majority and kept party leader dos Santos securely in power.

During that campaign, he made a series of unexpected appearances at public rallies, wearing colourful T-shirts and promising better universities and jobs.

As head of the military, police and cabinet, he has operated with few constraints.

He chooses senior judges and has MPLA allies in public agencies, including the supposedly independent electoral commission.

The state keeps a firm hand on the media and his picture often appears on the front pages of newspapers and countless billboards and posters.

Angola has become a major supplier of oil to China.

While he has sought to present himself as a rock of stability, activists accuse him of repression. Dissenters risk criminal charges and police crackdowns.

FLAG BEARER
In a 2013 interview for Brazilian television, he declared that his rule had been “too long, too long,” but added that decades of war “meant we couldn’t strengthen state institutions or even carry out normal democratisation”.

Dos Santos has reportedly received cancer treatment in Barcelona over several years.

Always immaculately-dressed, dos Santos has split his time between his palace in Luanda and a second residence south of the capital.

He rarely travelled on official business while in office, but is said to enjoy music, poetry, cooking fish and was once a keen footballer.

Meanwhile, Unita chief Isaias Samakuva has said he will step down from party leadership after the election.

Samakuva told Radio France Internationale that he would quit even if Unita won the poll.

The Unita leader is in France on a working visit that will also take him to Belgium and the United States.

He has led the party since 2003 when the party’s ninth congress elected him to replace Savimbi.

Samakuva will be Unita’s flagbearer for the election.