This is a brief narrative of the power struggles between the president and his own party since the establishment of a multiparty system in 1991. It features deployment of constitutional coups, patronage and legal measures to address such internal rifts, as well as the consequences that reverberate today.

Angolan anti-corruption campaigner Rafael Marques has started publishing a slew of investigations. Through a website he calls 'Maka Angola', after the Kimbundu word for trouble or problem Marques spares no blushes. He points the finger at some of the country’s most senior government officials and even President José Eduardo dos Santos’s own children. The reports make uncomfortable reading for overseas companies investing in Angola.

The new hypermarket is one of many businesses belonging to a fast-growing empire owned by senior public officials, which over the last three years has become the biggest player in the national economy.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/568/Unknown.gifThe company contracted to market Angola overseas is owned by the president’s children. While two-thirds of the population survives on less than $2 a day, the president and his protégés plunder the country.

Angola's ruling MPLA party has defended the re-appointment of the electoral commission chief and said opposition criticism was aimed at causing instability before an election this year. UNITA lawmakers and those of three smaller opposition parties walked out of parliament in protest as the election commission members were sworn in earlier on Wednesday, the state news agency Angop reported.