The former head of state (1979-2017), never directly elected, died last month at the age of 79 in a clinic in Barcelona. He is accused of having embezzled billions for the benefit of his family and loved ones.
Before a state funeral on Sunday, his coffin, covered with an Angolan flag, was exposed to the public in the morning in Republic Square, Luanda. A dozen Heads of State and Government are expected for the official ceremony.
As the funeral procession led by bikers and mounted police passes, some cry, others sing, noted AFP journalists. But the vast majority go about their business.
In the square open to the ocean, black flags are stretched while loudspeakers play religious music.
Messages on posters to the glory of the one sometimes nicknamed “Zedu” here: “Farewell beloved President”, “Forever our commander”, or even “Zedu, man of the people”.
The coffin was installed under a tent, with a portrait and armfuls of white flowers. Activists of the ruling party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) walk past the remains.
“We are here to salute our president, the president of peace, of national reconciliation,” Solange Quiniani, a Luanda resident dressed in party colors, told AFP.
A few members of the ex-president’s family are present, but none of his children. Some of them were opposed to the repatriation of the body to Angola but the Spanish justice ruled.
Eldest daughter Isabel, who is being hounded by judges over a series of corruption probes, wrote on social media last week that she would not be attending.
Members of the government are there but they leave the scene quickly.
These tributes come a few days after the Angolans vote to choose their deputies, in a ballot that will decide the next president. In the former Portuguese colony, independent since 1975, the head of the list of the winning party in the legislative elections is invested with the functions of Head of State.
– Tight ballot –
In power for 47 years, the MPLA is in the lead, according to the preliminary results of the electoral commission. The outgoing president, Joao Lourenço, 68, is close to a second term.
But with 51.07% of the votes out of almost all the votes cast (97.03%), the former single party has recorded its worst score, if these figures are confirmed.
The opposition, with so far 44.05% of the vote, disputes these results. Their leader Adalberto Costa Junior asked Friday for the creation of a verification commission.
Foreign observers have expressed “concerns” in particular about the electoral lists.
The final results of the ballot have not yet been released. These are the tightest elections in the country’s history.
On promises of reform, of eradicating poverty and corruption, the opposition has gained ground. Rampant inflation, severe drought and unemployment fuel a desire for change.
Mr. Costa Junior, 60, seduces young people, a growing part of the electorate who rejects the legacy of dos Santos, a symbol of corruption and nepotism.
The latter has made resource-rich Angola one of the continent’s top oil producers along with Nigeria. But the former head of state, born in the slums of Luanda, used this windfall to enrich himself while his country remained one of the poorest on the planet.
Designated successor, Joao Lourenço freed himself from the system by leading an anti-corruption campaign and reforms, hailed abroad, to get the economy out of its dependence on oil.
But many believe that this campaign was aimed at settling scores with the dos Santos clan. And more than half of the 33 million Angolans live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank.
