Angola holds a state funeral in Luanda on Sunday for the former president, José Eduardo dos Santos, who marked the country’s history with 38 years of authoritarian rule, marred by accusations of corruption and nepotism, leaving today a controversial legacy.
At the head of Angola from 1979 to 2017 without ever having been directly elected, with the party in power since independence (MPLA), dos Santos died on July 8, at the age of 79, in a clinic in Barcelona where he had been hospitalized after a cardiac arrest. His body was repatriated last week from Spain, where he had lived since 2019. A quarrel had pitted several of his children opposed to the repatriation of the body, with the Angolan government which wanted to organize a state funeral. Spanish justice has decided.
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None of his children present
A dozen heads of state and government are expected on Sunday for the official ceremony, led in the morning by current President Joao Lourenço, on Republic Square in the center of the capital. Cannons will be fired. After the military honours, a minute of silence will be observed. Family representatives must speak. On Saturday, none of the children of the former head of state were present when the coffin was displayed to the public. The eldest daughter, Isabel, hounded by judges for a series of corruption investigations, had written last week on social networks that she will not be present. A funeral procession will then lead the remains to the cemetery where the ex-president will be buried.
These tributes come a few days after the Angolans were called to the polls for the most disputed legislative elections in the history of the country and whose preliminary results are already disputed. The head of the list of the winning party will automatically be invested with the functions of Head of State.