Search Results for: Rússia

Angola Elections 2022: What Next for the Opposition?

Attempts by Angola’s opposition parties to challenge the result of last month’s elections in the Constitutional Court (Tribunal Constitucional) have faltered, with just a week remaining before the official swearing-in of the MPLA’s João Lourenço as President for a second term. The official election results announced by the National Electoral Commission (Comissão Nacional Eleitoral, CNE) declared victory for the MPLA with 51% of the vote, with UNITA second on 43% – an outcome that reflected voters’ appetite for change. So where does UNITA go from here and how best can it capitalize on the public mood? ——————————– Provided Angola’s Constitutional Court certifies the election result, the country’s next President will be sworn in on September 15th. In all likelihood, that will once again be the MPLA candidate, João Lourenço, who faces an uphill battle after the significant setbacks in this election for which many in the party blame him directly. […]

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Family of Former Angolan President at War

The controversial former President of Angola, José Eduardo dos Santos, is reportedly close to death at the private Teknon clinic in Barcelona[1] while family members fight over who has the right to switch off the machines keeping him alive. Amid unconfirmed reports that the 79-year-old former head of state is brain dead, the right of his wife, Ana Paula Lemos dos Santos, to take decisions as his next of kin is challenged by some of his children. His daughter, Welwitschia dos Santos, wants a full police investigation into what she alleges was “attempted homicide, criminal negligence, a failure to render assistance and a breach of medical confidentiality”. An official statement released “on behalf of the family”, late last week, stated that the former President had suffered a cardiac and respiratory arrest after falling downstairs at his Barcelona residence. This account is disputed by Welwitschia, known as ‘Tchizé’, who has instructed […]

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Angola’s ‘Money Pit’ Currency Museum

The Banco Nacional de Angola (BNA), the country’s central bank, is housed in one of the prettiest colonial buildings that the capital city has to offer: a confection of Portuguese colonial construction in pink and white, consisting of two colonnaded wings which meet at a circular tower topped by a distinctive red-tiled cupola. The ‘wedding cake’, completed in 1956, occupies an entire block of Luanda’s Marginal, the gently-curving and tree-lined avenue which runs the length of the picturesque bay. Buried in the paved pedestrian square alongside the bank, some meters beneath an elaborate winged structure, is one of the city’s lesser known museums: the subterranean ‘Museu da Moeda’ (the Currency Museum). Opened in 2016, it may only have a single below-ground exhibition room with exhibits of dubious worth but this museum is worthy of a little more attention than it has received so far. The Currency Museum project, which began […]

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Flying in the Face of Justice

Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais, the Swiss-Angolan ‘businessman’ who is accused of masterminding a conspiracy to defraud the Angolan Republic of untold millions of dollars, is enjoying life as a free man in Angola, despite being the subject of police investigations and criminal and civil lawsuits in several countries. Why, when he faces such serious criminal and civil charges in connection with his (mis)management of US $3 billion of the Angolan sovereign wealth fund and alleged fraud and money-laundering, is Mr. Bastos de Morais at liberty to continue to run the Banco Kwanza Invest (BKI) and the controversial project to build and run the Caio deep sea port project in Cabinda province? He is said to have amassed an enormous fortune largely thanks to his association with one of the sons of former Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos: José Filomeno, nicknamed Zenú. In one of his many acts of outright […]

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Angola’s Attorney General “Sorry for Mistake” in Accusing Army Chief

Recently, the office of the Attorney General publicly named the Chief of Staff of the Angolan Armed Forces, General Geraldo Sachipengo Nunda, a formal suspect for criminal association.  More specifically, General Nunda was implicated in a US $50 billion scam led by a Thai businessman.  However, the Attorney General later apologized for the “mistake”.  The bungle has deeply troubled the Army and the judiciary, and has cast a shadow on President Lourenço’s anti-corruption drive.   When General Hélder Fernando Pitta Grós was appointed to the office of Attorney General of the Republic by Angola’s new President, João Lourenço, in December 2017, public opinion was divided. On the one hand, there was disappointment that yet again a military figure would occupy what should be a civilian position. On the other, there was optimism that, after ten years under the jackboot of the truculent and controversial Dos Santos-appointee, General João Maria de Sousa, the country’s […]

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Chopper Crashes While Delivering Election Kits

The crew and ten passengers aboard an Angolan Air Force helicopter, a Russian Mi-171Sh, have had a lucky escape, after it crashed on take-off. The accident happened in Caiundo, in the southeastern province of Kuando-Kubango. Witnesses say the crew and passengers walked away with minor injuries though the aircraft and its cargo exploded minutes later. Military sources attributed the crash to pilot error. One source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Maka Angola that the pilot failed to achieve sufficient height on take-off and as he maneuvered, he hit trees obscured by the dust cloud lifted by the helicopter blades. The aircraft was delivered in June last year as part of investment to modernize the Angolan Air Force. It was carrying five Air Force personnel, three election agents and two policemen. They had been delivering materials for the August 23 general election. Witnesses said the election kits were destroyed in […]

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Oil & Money: Sonangol’s Extravagant Conference in London

Some of the most powerful players in the global oil and gas industry will be meeting in London on October 18-19, for the Oil & Money annual conference. Hosted jointly by the New York Times and Energy Intelligence, the conference is described as a “must attend” – a gathering of “over 450 of the most influential senior decision-makers from the industry, along with government ministers and representatives, financiers and bankers, consultants and legal experts.” The conference agenda boasts of hours of “effective network opportunities…in a crowd large enough to be powerful, small enough to be intimate.” Tickets for the conference cost £2,490 (544,000 Kz), not including attendance at the Petroleum Executive of the Year Dinner which will set you back an extra £525 (115,000 Kz). Who are the sponsors of this lavish affair? The list of donors includes big-hitters like Chevron, ExxonMobil and Dow Chemical but also a host of […]

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Witness to Slaughter: The Mount Sumi Massacre

Meet Raúl Xavier.  The 25-year-old was one of hundreds of followers of Pastor José Julino Kalupeteka, the Angolan founder of a breakaway Adventist sect called ‘Christian Church of the 7th Day – Light of the World’. Raúl Xavier was one of the first to run to Pastor Kalupeteka’s aid on April 16, 2015 when provincial police officers, backed by special units from the Angolan army, attacked the sect’s camp in the rural village of São Pedro de Sumé, in the central Angolan province of Huambo. Nursing a wound after a bullet went through his right ankle, he ended up witnessing what has become known as the ‘Mount Sumi Massacre’, from his hiding place on the rooftop of Kalupeteka’s house. On April 5, 2016 – just eleven days short of the first anniversary of the bloody events on Mount Sumi –  Pastor Kalupeteka was sentenced to 28 years in prison by […]

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Lúcio Lara: The First and Last Stalwart of the MPLA

When I was told my dear friend Lúcio Lara passed away my immediate response was to have a catharsis – to recall with Lúcio a few highlights from our past. I finished in less than half an hour (the fastest I think that I have ever written anything) and posted it on Facebook. Within minutes of posting it I felt frustrated that there are so many things that I didn’t include. A few days latter I was contacted by Maka Angola [or Rafael Marques…you choose]. They asked if I had more to say about Lúcio. What follows is a result of that conversation:   One person whom I was anxious to meet after Angolan independence, on November 11, 1975, was Lúcio Lara who was the MPLA and President Neto’s perennial number two for decades.  He was always described as the most radical “Marxist,” if not “Communist,” in the MPLA government.  […]

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Low Oil Prices Undo Angola

The crash in the price of oil has hit Angola hard.  Hospitals across the country are low on resources, including medicines.  There are food shortages in the North, drought in the South.  From Cabinda to Namibe, empty shelves in the stores attest to the government’s lack of response. If people are facing such serious difficulties in their day-to-day lives (in the so-called ‘micro’ economy) matters are no better on the macroeconomic scale where double-digit inflation is taking its toll. According to the National Institute of Statistics, inflation in the capital Luanda was running at 1.4% between September and October 2015.  Additionally, in the first months of 2016, the Kwanza has been devalued by 26%. The reason for all this is the low price of oil.  According to the United Nations Development Program, Angola has the least diversified economy in the world after Iraq.  Any fall in the price of a barrel […]

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