Angolan president to step down this year

AFTER nearly four decades in power, Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos, the second-longest serving leader in Africa, has announced he will leave office this year. He has talked of stepping down in the past, but this time the ailing Dos Santos, who has received medical treatment in Spain, is following through.

The heir apparent is the country’s 62-year-old defence minister João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, who will run in August on the ruling party’s ticket. The choice surprised many Angolans who thought Dos Santos would try to hand over power to one of his children.

Lourenço wasin Washington last week to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Pentagon about future sales of military equipment, security co-operation and what Defense Secretary Jim Mattis called “a strategic partnership”. Mattis praised Angolan assistance in fighting piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.

The next day, Lourenço spoke to about his goals for Angola, where the economy has been shaken by the collapse in oil prices last year and the government has been criticised for corruption and suppression of political opponents.

He vowed to fight corruption, increase transparency and welcome foreign investment.

He acknowledged that the Angolan government was currently running a deficit after the oil price fell below $60 (R792) a barrel.

As a teenager, he joined the MPLA – the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola – and fought the rival liberation movement Unita when Portugal was still the colonial power. Like others, he was sent by the party to study in the Soviet Union from 1978 to 1982 and had a long career in the military and other public offices.

He visited Washington frequently in recent years because his wife Ana Afonso Dias Lourenço, the former Angolan minister of planning, has been the World Bank’s executive director for Angola, Nigeria and South Africa.