WHEN João Lourenço said on the eve of Angola’s election in August that, as president, he would have “all the power”, few took him seriously. The former defence minister had been hand-picked by José Eduardo dos Santos, Angola’s president for 38 years, seemingly as part of a deal to protect his interests. The opposition dubbed him “the chauffeur”, since Mr dos Santos would tell him where to go.
Two months into his presidency, though, the chauffeur seems not to be taking directions. On November 15th he suddenly sacked Mr dos Santos’s flamboyant and ultra-wealthy elder daughter, Isabel dos Santos, from her job at the head of Sonangol, the national oil company. That was followed by the cancellation of a lucrative contract between the state television company and a media company owned by two of Mr dos Santos’s younger children.
Then, on November 20th, in defiance of a law introduced by his predecessor, Mr Lourenço fired the police chief and the head of the intelligence agency. In Luanda, the fabulously...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2kfsJ7M
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