On September 20, 1979, with the death of the first President of Angola, Agostinho Neto, José Eduardo Santos, then seen as a technocrat with little brilliance - to which an impassive and, at times, inscrutable expression was added - he was elected secretary- of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), assuming, the following day, the position of President of Angola and Commander-in-Chief of the Angolan Armed Forces.
Although few then augured a 38-year career in power, his choice in 1979 was not a big surprise in Angola: he was a close adviser to Agostinho Neto, he was from Luanda and the Kimbundu, the predominant ethnic group in the MPLA, had higher education and a large administrative experience.
At the age of 37, José Eduardo dos Santos was one of the youngest presidents on the African continent and was at the head of a country at war with another of the independence movements, UNITA, by Jonas Savimbi, and with South Africa, that of the regime of racial segregation or 'apartheid' on the border with Namibia.
His leadership has been described as reserved, industrious and tenacious, focusing on himself and his inner circle absolute power.
The 'Economist Intelligence Unit' wrote in 2012, the year of the last presidential elections in which he ran, that José Eduardo dos Santos, and the MPLA, had a "complete hegemony of the Angolan political system", in which the President was "at the top of a vast customer network".
The role the President "deftly" played in this network, the EIU analysts then wrote, is "to serve conflicting interests, nationally and within the party, while asserting his own position."
He took the lead on September 21, 1979 with the country in bankruptcy, plunged into a civil war, which came to give UNITA control of 70 percent of the territory, and, in the middle of the Cold War, against the pretensions of the Western bloc and United.
The path to power
José Eduardo dos Santos, known as Zedu, was born on August 28, 1942 in Luanda. His father, Eduardo Avelino dos Santos, was a retired bricklayer and his mother, Jacinta José Paulino, was a domestic worker.
In the early 1950s, he attended the Liceu Nacional Salvador Correia, in the capital of Portuguese colonial Angola. It was at Liceu Salvador Correia (named after the Portuguese soldier who reconquered Angola from the Dutch in 1648) that José Eduardo dos Santos began to get involved in political activities.
In 1956, the merger of several groups gave rise to the MPLA. At that time, José Eduardo dos Santos played an active role in organizing clandestine groups in the outskirts of Luanda, something that would intensify from 1961 onwards.
In February and March of that year - with the MPLA attack on a jail in Luanda and an attack by the UPA, União das Populações de Angola (predecessor of the National Liberation Front of Angola) against white populations - the war in Angola became inevitable.
At the age of 19, José Eduardo dos Santos will not soon fight the Portuguese in the bush. Instead, he leaves the country in secret and goes with six other young Angolans to Leopoldville (now Brazzaville), in the Republic of Congo. At 20 he accumulated the functions of deputy secretary of the JMPLA (youth of the MPLA) and of representative of the MPLA.
A year later, however, he did join the guerrillas. It was a brief stint, as in 1963 he received a scholarship to study at the Gas and Oil Institute of Baku, in the former Soviet Union, where he graduated as an industrial engineer (oil sector) in June 1969.
Valentin Varennikov, a Soviet general who was in Angola several times to organize resistance to UNITA and South Africa's onslaughts, recalls that Eduardo dos Santos, as a young student, "was distinguished by unusual abilities, he had a tenacious and lively intellect".
In his memoirs, the same general also recalls that the manager "was physically well developed", which led him "to play for Neftchi (Azerbaijan), a football team in the Soviet first league, but that "his personal life developed in a much more dramatic way", having to leave the family formed in Russia.
After finishing his thesis, he was sent to a Soviet military academy to receive instruction as a military communications operator. The training made him rise in the military hierarchy of the movement, assuming the leadership of the North Front's communications center, from 1970 to 1974 and, later, occupying the position of deputy head of the communications service of the second political-military region of the MPLA, Cabinda.
Member of the Provisional Commission for the Reorganization of the Northern Front and head of the financial services of the second political-military district, it was only in September 1975 - and by appointment of President Agostinho Neto - José Eduardo dos Santos was chosen to integrate the Central Committee of the MPLA.
With the independence of the then People's Republic of Angola, on 11 November 1975, José Eduardo dos Santos was chosen as head of diplomacy.
At that time, the MPLA was experiencing a strong internal division: on the one hand, the leader and President, Agostinho Neto, and on the other, the Minister of Internal Administration and member of the Central Committee, Nito Alves, supported by José Van-Dúnem. The MPLA accused them of "fractionalism" or "nitismo", putting José Eduardo dos Santos in charge of leading a commission of inquiry into their conduct.
Nito Alves and Van-Dúnem would end up being assassinated following the demonstrations of May 27, 1977, when thousands of their supporters were arrested and/or killed by the government forces of the time, supported by the Cuban military.
Amnesty International believes that at least 30,000 people were killed in the purge.
At the first congress of the now designated MPLA - Partido do Trabalho, in December 1977, José Eduardo dos Santos remained a member of the Central Committee and the Political Committee. In government roles, José Eduardo dos Santos was Deputy Prime Minister (until December 1978) and Minister of Planning.
In 2007, he announced parliamentary elections in 2008 (which the MPLA would win again) and presidential elections in 2009.
The presidential elections would eventually be postponed, in time for a constitutional amendment to be approved (in 2010) that eliminated the presidential election and paved the way for the designation as President of the leader of the most voted party in the national constituency in the parliamentary elections.
In the new general elections of August 2012, he guaranteed another five years in power, as the MPLA won again by an absolute majority.
When, in 2016, José Eduardo dos Santos, a man weakened by the disease, announced that he would abandon Angolan politics, the names of his children and the vice president, Manuel Vicente, came to be considered as possible successors in the presidency.
But in February the MPLA would end up confirming that the candidate for the indirect presidential elections on 23 August would be the Minister of Defense and number two of the MPLA, João Lourenço.
José Eduardo Santos, the young Marxist who held the presidency of the "firm trench of socialism in Africa" retired to Futungo de Belas, in Luanda, where he followed his political path.
Considered cold and calculating by critics, he sacked dozens of ministers, several prime ministers, and military commanders whom he blamed for the failures in directing national destinies in economic terms or in the fight against UNITA, consolidating his personal power.
He left the presidency in 2017, giving way to the current head of state, João Lourenço, and leaving a country with abundant oil revenues and budget surpluses, courted by major global powers, from China to the United States.
