Reports indicate that Angola’s immediate former president, José Eduardo dos Santos, is in an induced coma in a hospital in Barcelona.
The victim is hospitalised in a clinic in Barcelona and is in a coma following a [relapse], after recovering from Covid-19,” said Portugal’s state-owned Lusa News Agency.
The Portuguese Expresso Newspaper described Dos Santos’ medical condition as “irreversible,” which has fanned rumors regarding his health.
Tchizé dos Santos, the former president’s daughter, has however condemned and criticised “those preparing his funeral.”
She further charged that Joo Lourenço, the president of Angola, had politicized the predicament of his father.
From 1979 to 2017, José Eduardo dos Santos presided over Angola. As President, he was also the commander in chief of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) and President of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the party that has ruled Angola since it gained independence in 1975.
He was the second-longest-serving president in Africa, surpassed only by President Teodore Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, who took power less than two months before dos Santos.
The former President joined the MPLA, then an anti-colonial movement while still in school, and earned degrees in petroleum engineering and radar communications while studying in the Soviet Union. He fought for the MPLA during the Angolan War of Independence, which became the sole legal party after the country’s independence in 1975 and adopted Marxism-Leninism as its ideology. He then held several positions including Minister of Foreign Affairs during the rule of the country’s first president, Agostinho Neto.