Dos Santos, who served as president between 1979 and 2017, died within the Spanish metropolis of Barcelona on Friday morning, CNN Portugal reported, citing a authorities assertion. The previous president had been hospitalized in Spain previous to his dying.
Dos Santos’ time in workplace was one of many longest-running presidencies on the planet.
In an announcement, the Angolan authorities mentioned it “bows, with the best respect and consideration, to the determine of a statesman of nice historic dimension, who ruled for a few years with knowledge and humanism the destiny of the Angolan Nation, in very tough moments .”
The presidency mentioned it was sending “deep emotions of sorrow” to the household and appealed “to everybody’s serenity on this time of ache and consternation.”
A former Portuguese colony, Angola emerged from the wreckage of a 27-year civil conflict to change into one of many continent’s main financial gamers.
Dos Santos of the Folks’s Motion for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) get together oversaw a lot of Angola’s post-war financial progress and rebuilding efforts.
Legacy of corruption
The anti-corruption watchdog Transparency Worldwide in 2017 mentioned that “nepotism and cronyism” underneath dos Santos had “stopped odd Angolans from benefiting from the nation’s pure useful resource wealth, particularly when oil costs have been excessive.”
In the identical yr — the yr dos Santos stepped down — the group mentioned that corruption had “for too lengthy enriched a small ruling elite whereas greater than two thirds of the nation’s inhabitants stay in poverty.”
Whereas her first enterprise endeavor noticed her open a restaurant in Angola’s capital, Luanda, in 1997, investments in publicly traded corporations in Portugal and her property in not less than one Angolan financial institution “pushed her internet value over the $1 billion mark,” in line with Forbes . The businesswoman was recognized as “one of many prime examples of grand corruption on the planet” by Transparency Worldwide.
Isabel dos Santos has repeatedly denied allegations of corruption. In March, CNN Portugal reported that dos Santos had mentioned that Angolan investigations into her enterprise dealings have been primarily based on “false paperwork and knowledge” and a “political assault” by the Angolan authorities.
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