Angola: Dos Santos steps down as party chief

PIC: Angola's Jose Eduardo dos Santos, shown here voting in last year's election won by Joao/ Photo : AFP

POLITICS

LUANDA - Ex-president Jose Eduardo dos Santos will Saturday bow out from Angolan politics which he dominated for nearly four decades when he hands leadership of the ruling party to President Joao Lourenco.

The passing of the baton between the two men will be the climax of a handover marked by barely disguised friction and new policies challenging dos Santos's legacy.

As his rule came to an end, dos Santos said he wanted to be remembered for his dignified exit from the office he held since 1979.

The 76-year-old liberation war veteran did not seek re-election in the August 2017 polls and handed the reins of power to his defence minister Lourenco, 64.

But he remained at the helm of the oil-rich country's People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) party, where much of the real power is seen to be vested.

On Saturday, "Comrade Number One" will relinquish control of the MPLA to Lourenco at an extraordinary party meeting.

"The stepping down of Jose Eduardo dos Santos as MPLA president is an important watershed moment," said Alex Vines, an Angola expert at the Chatham House think-tank in London.

"It's been a bumpy transition with a bit of tug-of-war over power between (them)."

By choosing a successor from within his own regime, dos Santos had thought he would be assured a peaceful handover.

He had earlier given control of strategic sectors of the economy to close confidants -- including the state oil giant to his daughter Isabel.

Dos Santos also appointed loyalists to head the country's security forces.

 A purge of the old guard

But Lourenco quickly moved to assert his authority after being elected president last year, beginning to dismantle his predecessor's empire.

On the premise of rebooting the listless economy, Lourenco deposed Isabel from the top job at Sonangol as well as her half-brother Jose "Zenu" Filomeno from the leadership of Angola's sovereign wealth fund.

Filomeno has since been charged with misappropriating public funds while Isabel faces several graft investigations.

Many of dos Santos's acolytes have been purged from the highest echelons of Angolan public life including the army and police chiefs as well as executives at state-owned companies.

The clear-out created ructions at the top of the state and the party.

In recent months, the two men and their staffs have sought to make amends and smoothe the way to the final handover.

"Everything is going normally, there hasn't been any turbulence," said Luzia Ingles, secretary general of the party's women's league.

But the fissure between the two men had come close to breaking point.

Dos Santos had originally proposed stepping down from the party leadership by April 2019 -- but Lourenco insisted it must be Saturday.

"Lourenco is already entirely autonomous as shown by his sacking of the dos Santos children -- all of the country's sectors have been purged," said Benjamin Auge, an analyst at the French Institute for International Relations.

Since his election, Lourenco -- dubbed "JLo" -- has enacted sweeping reforms of the oil sector, the country's leading source of revenue, with the aim of reassuring investors.

But the task facing the president is daunting: chronic unemployment, sluggish growth and alarming deficits have dogged Africa's second-largest producer of crude.

Highlighting the impending storm, Angola has said it will seek a $4.5 billion (3.87 billion euro) loan from the International Monetary Fund.