Can an apartheid ally win in Angola?

Since 1975, the once-Marxist People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) has ruled Angola, presiding over an increasingly corrupt and intolerant administration. Meanwhile, the opposition National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) has carried uncomfortable baggage: It was supported by South Africa’s apartheid government and the CIA during the country’s 27-year civil war. But as Justin Pearce, a professor and Angola specialist at Stellenbosch University in South Africa told OZY, the country appears poised for a possible change. Since 2019, UNITA has been led by Adalberto Costa Júnior, a leader who “is for many the right candidate for the times,” according to Pearce. A poll in July by the Mudei Civic Movement, a citizen-based election monitoring group, found that UNITA and its United Patriotic Alliance had 50.2% support across the country, and the MPLA trailed with only 27.9%.

Costa Júnior, 60, is changing the political narrative in Angola and has become known for his astute interventions in parliament. Claudio Silva, a political commentator from the Angolan capital of Luanda, told OZY that Costa Júnior’s strong communication skills stand out in “stark contrast to the president,” João Lourenço, who has in recent months struggled to get his message across. Costa Júnior recently called on Lourenço to have an electoral debate in public — something never done before in Angola. “What are you afraid of, Mr. President?” he asked. Lourenço hasn’t responded yet. “It is like it is beneath members of the MPLA to debate, because they are used to being supreme leaders,” said Silva. “Angola is a democratic state in name only.”

But there now seems to be a mood for change. Despite leading what has traditionally been thought of as the largely rural-based UNITA party, Costa Júnior has developed a large popular following among the urban youth. Young people in Luanda have repeatedly taken to the streets in frustration with the MPLA, only to be violently attacked by security forces. Elson, a young student from Luanda, messaged OZY to say, “Costa Júnior is my man.” Elson admitted, however, that his parents are supporters of Lourenço’s MPLA. But Silva insisted that even the older generations in the MPLA’s stronghold of Luanda are turning to UNITA “because the situation has become untenable.”

For all of its oil riches, Angola remains one of the most unequal countries in the world. Over half of its population lives in extreme poverty. Under the authoritarian rule of the recently deceased José Eduardo Dos Santos, the country became synonymous with dizzying corruption. The ruling party’s elites and their patronage networks have siphoned off billions of dollars into tax havens around the world. In 2020, the Luanda Leaks investigation proved that one of the main beneficiaries of this corruption was Isabel Dos Santos, José Eduardo’s daughter. The leaks also raised questions about how some of the world’s biggest accounting firms enabled Isabel to obtain her fortune and move it off shore.

In 2017, after Dos Santos stepped down as president, Lourenço was welcomed into power by millions of Angolans with the promise that he would clean out corruption. “Lourenço was incredibly popular when he came into power,” Silva said. The initial signs were good: Several politicians and members of the military were charged with corruption; Dos Santos’ son José Filomeno was sent to jail; and Lourenço also removed Isabel as head of the state-owned Sonangol oil company. As president, Lourenço met some of the MPLA’s toughest critics, and agreed to a long-held demand to hand over the body of the late UNITA leader, Jonas Savimbi.

But Lourenço — who took over amid a national economic crisis — was doomed from the start, according to Pearce. He added that Lourenço’s attempts to crack down on the Dos Santos faction in the MPLA were a way of consolidating his own power. Whatever his reasons, Lourenço’s efforts to stem corruption are now widely seen as both too selective — only pursuing those close to Dos Santos — and largely a failure.

Silva pointed out that Angola’s growing momentum for change is powered by a massive demographic shift: Two-thirds of the population is under the age of 24. This means that “the vast majority of these people were born after the civil war and have spent their whole lives under MPLA rule, which has been catastrophic,” said Silva. While the MPLA continues to emphasize the former links between the apartheid government in South Africa and UNITA, “most of the population wasn’t alive when South Africa invaded Angola,” he said.