The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Dos Santos’s reign saw the end of the 1975-2002 war and a post-conflict investment boom as the country exploited its oil reserves.
But the slump in crude prices in 2014 hit the country hard.
Dos Santos was Africa’s second-longest-serving leader — one month shy of Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
Nguema was present at the ceremony, along with President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila, South African President Jacob Zuma and other African leaders.
Dos Santos’s regular visits to Spain for “private” reasons fuelled criticism that the state of his health was being hidden from ordinary Angolans.
– ‘All the power’ –
Earlier this year, his daughter Isabel — who has become a billionaire and Africa’s richest businesswoman under his rule — was forced to deny rumours that he had died in Spain.
Isabel heads the state oil company Sonangol and his son Jose Filomeno holds the reins at the nation’s sovereign wealth fund.
Critics have often accused Dos Santos of ruthlessly suppressing dissent and enriching his family and the ruling elite.
Amnesty International called for Lourenco to “guide the country out of the spiral of oppression” and castigated Dos Santos’s “appalling human rights record”.
Dos Santos is to remain MPLA party chief, and new laws have been passed to limit the unfettered presidential power he enjoyed.
The day after the vote, Lourenco denied that he would be a puppet ruler.
“I will have all the power. This country will not have two presidents,” he said.
EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement that the election and peaceful political transition was “a clear sign of Angolan people’s commitment to democracy”.
