Angolans still not sure if dos Santos plans to leave

LUANDA

Will he go? Will he stay? Angola’s President Jose Eduardo dos Santos last week began his 38th year of largely unchallenged rule after promising to step down in 2018.“I have decided to leave political life in 2018,” the 74-year-old leader told party officials of his People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in a surprise announcement in March.

But last month, he was re-elected head of the MPLA, which would automatically extend his mandate as Angola’s ruler by five years if the party wins the 2017 elections, as is expected.On a continent where political longevity is common, dos Santos is a champion.

Only President Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea beats him as longest serving ruler — and by just a month.Dos Santos took office on September 21, 1979 following the death of President Agostinho Neto.

The ex-independence fighter gradually took control of major organs of a Marxist state still at war with the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) rebels.As president of the MPLA, he became commander in chief of the armed forces and the police, ran the government and appointed judges.

Dos Santos went on to entrust control of key institutions to close aides and family.In a symbol of his grip on the nation, he placed his daughter Isabel in charge of the national oil firm, Sonangol in June.

The “princess”, as Isabel is known, is held to be Africa’s wealthiest woman with a fortune estimated at $3.36 billion.Her homeland has meanwhile been rated by global institutions and rights organisations as one of the poorest, most corrupt and repressive countries on the planet.

The latest “anniversary” evokes little more than a resigned shrug from those who dislike the regime.“It’s an ugly dictatorship,” says Raul Danda, the vice-president of UNITA, which became the main opposition party after civil war ended in 2002.

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William Tonnet, director of the opposition paper Folha 8, takes dos Santos’ pledge to quit for a hoax.“How can a politician, one year ahead of the elections, announce that he’ll quit politics one year after the election?”

“He’s a true despot, a fake democrat,” said rapper MC Life Adao Bunga. “It’s just another con to keep the people of Angola asleep.”In a 2013 interview for Brazilian TV, Dos Santos declared that his rule had been “too long, too long,” but he added that 30 years of war “meant we couldn’t strengthen state institutions or even carry out the normal process of democratisation”.

“The constitution authorises him to take one more mandate until 2022,” says MPLA lawmaker and professor Joao Pinto.Angola’s economy has been hit hard by the fall in oil prices and the departure of dos Santos would also raise delicate succession issues.

Speculation has been rife since March, but foes of the regime anticipate a dynasty, where dos Santos would distance himself but protect his assets.“He wants to leave the position to one of his sons so his family doesn’t lose power,” said Nelson Pestana Bonavena of Democratic Bloc party.

“He doesn’t have confidence in anybody else. He’s placed two of his sons on the central committee as possible successors and his daughter at the head of Sonangol, to maintain control of the country’s economy.”

“None of his children has the legal standing to take over,” counters Benjamin Auge, a researcher. “If he dies in power, I think it will rather be one of his brothers in arms from the MPLA who takes the reins.”