José Eduardo dos Santos

José Eduardo dos Santos joined the MPLA as a student anti-colonial fighter, studied petroleum engineering in the Soviet Union, and rose to Foreign Minister under Angola's first president, Agostinho Neto. When Neto died in 1979, dos Santos inherited the presidency and a grinding civil war against Western-backed UNITA rebels. By 1991 he shifted the MPLA from communism to social democracy and opened the door to multi-party elections; he won in 1992 against UNITA's Jonas Savimbi, then presided over economic liberalisation and the boom in Angola's oil sector. In 1997 he backed the rebel push that toppled Mobutu in Zaire, installing Laurent-Désiré Kabila, and later supported Kabila's son through the Second Congo War. The civil war ended in 2002 after Savimbi's death. Dos Santos won again in 2012 and stepped down in 2017, leaving behind a record of foreign investment and international peace awards - and persistent accusations that his regime was among the most corrupt on the continent.