Joao Lourenco: The ex-general who is set to rule Angola

Joao Lourenco delivers his keynote during the closing campaign rally in Luanda, on August 19, 2017, ahead of Angolan elections. He won the poll. PHOTO | MARCO LONGARI | AFP

What you need to know:

  • Joao Manuel Goncalves Lourenco was born on March 5, 1954, in Lobito, in western Angola.

  • As a young man, he fought against the then colonial power Portugal.

  • After Angola won its independence in 1975, he fought in the civil war that erupted between the MPLA government and UNITA rebels.

Angola's new president, Joao Lourenco, is a ruling party loyalist and former general who endured several years out of favour after angling for the top job in the 1990s.

Since then, Lourenco, 63, has convinced key regime players he is the right man to succeed Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has ruled the oil-rich southwest African nation for 38 years.

INNER CIRCLE

As the deputy president of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) — and defence minister until last month — Lourenco is now "part of the inner circle of power", said Didier Peclard, an Angola specialist at the University of Geneva.

The MPLA won Wednesday's election, carrying Lourenco to power as the party's presidential candidate.

It was something of a turnaround for a man whose ambition nearly ended his career in the 1990s when Dos Santos hinted he might stand down.

Angolan President and The People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola President Eduardo dos Santos and MPLA candidate to the presidency Joao Lourenço hold hands during the closing campaign rally in Luanda, on August 19, 2017. PHOTO | MARCO LONGARI | AFP

Lourenco failed to hide his desire to succeed him.

Dos Santos, believing the former general was being opportunistic, forced Lourenco into several years of "political purgatory", according to Peclard.

His apparent flirtation with resignation had been merely "a political manoeuvre to bring those in the party with ambitions out of the woodwork, and Joao Lourenco paid the price," he said.

UNITA

Joao Manuel Goncalves Lourenco was born on March 5, 1954, in Lobito, in western Angola.

As a young man, he fought against the then colonial power Portugal.

After Angola won its independence in 1975, he fought in the civil war that erupted between the MPLA government and UNITA rebels.

Like Dos Santos, Lourenco studied in the former Soviet Union, which trained a number of rising young African leaders during decolonisation.

Joao Lourenco shows his inked finger after voting in Luand, on August 23, 2017 during the general elections. He is now set to succeed President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos who has ruled for 38 years after MPLA won just over 64 percent of the ballot. PHOTO | AMPE ROGERIO | AFP

He became political chief of the armed wing of the MPLA in the civil war — a Cold War proxy conflict that drew in Cuban forces to fight alongside the MPLA, while CIA-backed militias opposed them.

In 1984, he was appointed governor of the eastern province of Moxico, Angola's largest, quickly rising through the MPLA hierarchy.

ISABEL

The ex-artillery general later led his party's group in Parliament before becoming deputy speaker of the National Assembly.

His appointment as defence minister in 2014 secured his position as favoured successor to Dos Santos.

Now that he is to become president, his main challenge may be Angola's shift to free-market capitalism at a time when volatile oil prices are taking a heavy toll on the crude-dependent economy.

A wrestler poses on top of a truck overlooking a crowd attending an electoral meeting by Angolan President and The People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and MPLA presidential Candidate Joao Lourenço in Luanda on August 19, 2017. PHOTO | MARCO LONGARI | AFP

Lourenco "has a reasonable reputation as a moderate, not an extreme character," said Soren Kirk Jensen of the Chatham House research group in London.

"He is probably the right person to be the bridge as Angola goes through a transition."

Rumours abound that Dos Santos had hoped to hand over the reins of power to one of his children, one of whom, Isabel dos Santos, is Africa's first billionaire woman according to Forbes magazine.

LITTLE HOPE

But Jensen said that "there is speculation that high-ranked people in the party put their foot down against this."

Opponents of Dos Santos's all-powerful regime believe Lourenco offers little hope of real change in Angola.

Activist and journalist Rafael Marques, a leading regime critic, said Lourenco was at heart "a hardline MPLA general".

A boy slides down from the containment walls of a train track of the Viana district in Luanda, on August 22, 2017. There was excitement after Joao Lourenco smelt victory. PHOTO | MARCO LONGARI | AFP

Former political prisoner Nuno Alvaro Dala said that under Lourenco "power in Angola will continue to be militarised".

He is married to Ana Dias Lourenco, a former minister who also represented Angola at the World Bank.

They have six children.