Angolan President and chairman of the ruling MPLA Jose Eduardo dos
Santos holds hands with the party's presidential candidate Joao Lourenco
at a closing campaign rally in Luanda on August 19, 2017. Tensions
between the two have erupted into the open as an anti-corruption drive
targets the former ruler's family. PHOTO | AFP
Tensions between Angola's president and his long-serving
predecessor have erupted into the open as an anti-corruption drive
targets the former ruler's family.
President Joao
Lourenco has pledged to crusade against entrenched state corruption and
nepotism since taking over in September from Jose Eduardo dos Santos,
who ruled Angola for 38 years.
Battling graft is a
cornerstone of Lourenco's promised "economic miracle" that he hopes will
halt the oil-dependent country's economic slump caused by stubbornly
low crude prices.
A once-loyal minister under Dos Santos, Lourenco has purged state-run corporations of leaders appointed by his former boss.
The first has been Dos Santos's daughter Isabel, who ran the state oil giant Sonangol and is now facing a graft probe.
His
son Jose Filomeno was similarly dethroned from the top job at the
country's sovereign wealth fund in January and was this week charged in
relation to a $500-million (400-million-euro) fraud.
Dos Santos, 75, who remains head of the ruling MPLA party, has
said little on his successor's policies except to caution Lourenco
against reforming "too quickly".
The former first
daughter has not exercised the same restraint and alleged on her social
media accounts that her family are victims of a witch hunt at the hands
of the country's new leader.
On non-speaking terms?
Relations
"have significantly deteriorated to the extent that both men do not
talk to each other," said Alex Vines, an analyst at the London-based
Chatham House think-tank.
"After almost 38 years in power, the transition from Dos Santos to Lourenco was never going to be completely smooth.
"The
state of the economy forced a quicker reform process than originally
intended and has had to challenge interests of key members of Dos
Santos' family."
Angolan media have for several weeks carried reports of a ruction between the two most powerful men in the country.
Friction
spilt into the open at a meeting of the ruling party's central
committee earlier this month when Dos Santos — who previously said he
would step down from the MPLA's top job this year — said he may stay on
until 2019.
According to a member of the committee,
there were fierce exchanges between old-guard supporters of Dos Santos
and members aligned to Lourenco who want him named party leader
immediately.
Isabel has waded into the issue,
denouncing the spread of "fake news" in the country intended to "create
confusion and division at the heart of the MPLA with the intention of
destroying it".
Lourenco — who served as Dos Santos's
defence minister until last year's election — tried to play down any
splits at the MPLA gathering, insisting that "such things don't happen
on our side".
Underwhelmed
"Angola
is capable of an exemplary transition — right to the end," said social
communications minister Joao Melo on his Twitter account in an effort to
damp down the political tussle.
Journalist Rafael
Marques, who was a fierce critic of Dos Santos-era graft, suggested that
the disputes was a distraction from Angola's real problems.
"Nothing
has changed. Lourenco's economic team are still using the same old
formula which has not done any good for those living in Angola," said
the activist who is facing criminal charges for accusing the former
attorney general of corruption.
Ordinary Angolans are similarly underwhelmed by the direction of the country under the new president.
"He's
been in power for six months but electricity is still as expensive as
it was before and people don't have any work," Elisabeth Mateus, 65,
told AFP.
Vines, the analyst, said that Lourenco was
aware that his political future depended on improving living conditions
for the population, one of the poorest in the world despite Angola's oil
wealth.
"His principal objective is to have stimulated
new economic growth before the next elections in 2022 so that the MPLA
be returned with an increased majority," he said.
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