Former Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos. Picture: Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko
THE FUNERAL ceremony of Angola’s former president Jose Eduardo dos Santos is set to take place on Sunday on what would have been the former leader’s 80th birthday.
Territory Minister Marcy Lopes said that at least 21 foreign delegations represented at the highest level are expected to arrive in Angola to attend the funeral ceremony of the former president of the southern African nation, according to Xinhua.
Dos Santos, who ruled Angola from 1979 to 2017, died on July 8, 2022, at the age of 79, in Barcelona, Spain, where he spent most of his time over the past five years.
The arrival in Angola of the remains of Dos Santos on August 20, just days before Angolans headed to the polls in crucial elections, ended a dispute that has lasted since July 8.
The body was finally handed over to his widow, Ana Paula dos Santos, after a legal battle between two sides of the family in the Spanish courts.
Ramaphosa to attend State Funeral
President Cyril Ramaphosa will travel to the Republic of Angola on Sunday to attend the state funeral service of Dos Santos.
The state funeral service will take place in Luanda at 11am South African time.
President Ramaphosa will be accompanied by Deputy Minister of International Relations and Co-operation, Alvin Botes.
Religious chants echoed through loudspeakers in the vast plaza, where there were black flags and posters paying homage to "Zedu" - Dos Santos' nickname, according to Seychelles News Agency.
According to local Angolan media, about 20 women wept, chanting the name of the man whose tenure was marred by allegations of sweeping nepotism and plunder of the oil-rich state's resources.
Election update
The party that has ruled Angola continuously for nearly 50 years claimed victory on Friday in this week's election, after the electoral commission put its share of the vote at 51%. However, the leader of the main opposition coalition rejected the results, writes Reuters.
Fewer than half of Angola's registered voters turned out for Wednesday's election, which now looks certain to give President Joao Lourenco a second five-year term and extend the rule of the MPLA, which has governed the southern African oil producer since independence from Portugal in 1975.
With more than 97% of the vote counted, the election commission said on Thursday the formerly Marxist People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola, or MPLA, was ahead with a 51% majority while its long-time opponent, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, or Unita, had 44.5%.
"We have reached yet another outright majority. We have a calm majority to govern without any kind of problem and we will do it," MPLA spokesman Rui Falcao told a news conference in the capital Luanda, a city that overwhelmingly voted for Unita.
However, Unita leader Costa Junior, addressing journalists and supporters for the first time since the vote, rejected what he called "brutal" discrepancies between the commission's count and their own tally.
"There is not the slightest doubt that the MPLA did not win the elections," he said. "Unita does not recognise the provisional results."
It was Angola's most closely fought poll yet, with unprecedented gains for the opposition in parliamentary seats.
Analysts fear any dispute could ignite violence among a poor and frustrated youth who voted for Junior. The MPLA and Unita, formerly both anti-colonial guerrilla groups, were on opposing sides of an on-off civil war after independence that lasted 27 years until 2002.
Junior urged Angolans to keep calm, which so far they mostly have, aside from the odd protest broken up by tear gas and baton-wielding police.
Civil society activists shared images on social media of dozens of young people marching, chanting and waving banners in protest against electoral fraud in the coastal town of Lobito on Friday. Reuters was unable to verify these images.
Junior must lodge a complaint to the commission, and if it is rejected, he can challenge the result in the Constitutional Court, which must rule on the matter within 72 hours.