Veteran Angolan
President Jose Eduardo dos Santos announced Friday he will not run in August
elections, signalling the end to 37 years in power and naming his defence minister
as the candidate to succeed him.
The autocratic
74-year-old has been the oil-rich country's president since September 1979,
making him Africa's second-longest serving leader -- one month short of
Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
His rule has seen the
end of civil war and an investment boom, but has also been criticised as
secretive and corrupt, with Angola's citizens suffering dire poverty as his
family became hugely wealthy.
Dos Santos told a
meeting of the ruling MPLA party in Luanda that "the party approved the
name of the candidate heading the list in the August elections as (Defence
Minister) Joao Manuel Goncalves Lourenco".
Lourenco, a former
general, emerged as the probable next president late last year at another
meeting of the MPLA (People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola).
Earlier in the year,
Dos Santos had said he would step down in 2018.
The party -- which
faces no real political opposition -- recently issued a statement denying
reports that Dos Santos was seriously ill.
After constitutional
changes in 2010, Angola does not directly elect a president, but the leader of
the winning party automatically becomes head of state.
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