Angola goes to the polls on Wednesday in a historic election marking the end of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos' 38-year reign, with his party set to retain power despite the country's economic crisis.

The MPLA (People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola), which has ruled the country since its 1975 independence from Portugal, is expected to defeat opposition parties that struggle under a repressive regime.

Dos Santos' retirement - reportedly prompted by ill health - has triggered the biggest political transition in decades for Angola, a leading oil exporter in Africa.

However, his chosen successor, Defence Minister Joao Lourenco, is a loyalist who is predicted to avoid immediate change in a government often criticised for corruption and failure to tackle dire poverty.

"Dos Santos brought forward his departure to after these elections due to his deteriorating health," Alex Vines, of the Chatham House think-tank, told AFP news agency.

"Lourenco is an ideal transitional successor to dos Santos. He is respected by the military and has not lived a flamboyant lifestyle of many others."

READ MORE: Angola's dos Santos confirms plan to step down

At a weekend rally in front of thousands of MPLA party supporters, dos Santos, a frail-looking 74-year-old, made a brief appearance to endorse the likely new president.

"We have no doubt about the victory of the MPLA, and our candidate will be the future president, which is why I ask you: August 23, vote MPLA ... and Joao Lourenco," he said in a weak voice.

Dos Santos has been dogged by reports of illness, and his regular visits to Spain for "private" reasons fuelled criticism that his health status was being hidden from ordinary Angolans.

Earlier this year, his daughter Isabel - who has become a billionaire and Africa's richest businesswoman under his rule - was forced to deny rumours he had died in Spain.

Dos Santos' long rule has seen the end of Angola's bloody civil war that lasted from 1975 to 2002, and he has presided over a post-war investment boom as the country exploited its oil reserves.

But the flood of money brought little benefit to Angola's poor, and the crash in oil prices in 2014 triggered a full-scale economic crisis.

Opposition parties, who have a low profile due to restrictions on their activities and lack of finance, have sought to tap into public anger at the government.

"You who are suffering, you who are in poverty, without electricity, without jobs or nothing to eat - change is now," Isaias Samakuva, candidate for the main opposition UNITA party told supporters on the campaign trail.

Samakuva, 71, took over UNITA after longtime rebel leader Jonas Savimbi was killed in 2002, a death that marked the beginning of the end of a 27-year civil war.



Lourenco, 63, has focused in his campaign speeches on vowing to "fight against corruption", "create jobs" and "make Angola better".</s>Polling stations opened Wednesday across Angola in an election that marks the end of President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos's 38-year reign, with his MPLA party predicted to retain power....
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The longtime leader has laid the groundwork for his designated successor in an oil-rich country where poverty, corruption and human rights concerns are unlikely to dissipate anytime soon.

Defense Minister Joao Lourenco is the ruling MPLA party's candidate to succeed dos Santos, who is expected to remain party leader. Lourenco, whose association with 74-year-old dos Santos dates to the war against Portuguese colonial rule, has pledged to fight graft if elected.

He would likely encounter the entrenched interests of an elite partly dominated by the president's family, including daughter Isabel dos Santos, who heads the state oil company Sonangol although media reports have indicated that she could vacate the post.

Isabel dos Santos is reputed to be Africa's richest woman, hailing from a nation with one of the highest poverty rates in the world. Angola endured decades of civil war that ended in 2002, leaving at least half a million people dead, several million displaced from their homes and infrastructure devastated.

Despite evidence of cronyism, the selection of Lourenco as a successor to dos Santos and the avoidance of a "dynastic transition" to one of the president's children indicates "that internal checks and balances may be stronger than many believed," said Soren Kirk Jensen, an associate fellow in the African program of Chatham House, a London-based institute.

"As the process unfolds, it is clear that Angola is following the pattern of gradual democratization from other governments in Southern Africa headed by former liberation parties that led the armed struggle for independence from colonial powers," Jensen wrote in an analysis.

The MPLA, whose Portuguese acronym means Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, is the election front-runner after winning in 2012 with 72 percent of votes amid allegations of irregularities.

The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) party, a former rebel force that fought the MPLA in the civil war, is the main opposition challenger and won nearly 19 percent in the election five years ago.

Heavily reliant on oil production, Angola has since struggled because of the global fall in commodity prices and the opposition seeks to capitalize on what it says is growing discontent in the southern African nation's young population.

About 9.3 million Angolans are registered to vote for the 220-member National Assembly, and the winning party will then select the president. Dos Santos, who has received medical treatment in Spain this year, appeared alongside Lourenco at a weekend rally on the outskirts of the Angolan capital of Luanda.

"I come here just to reiterate my personal support to our candidate" said dos Santos, according to the Portuguese news agency Lusa. "I do not doubt that the MPLA will win the elections, and he, our candidate, will be elected the next president of the republic of Angola."

Lourenco, in turn, praised the president, describing him as "the captain of the team" and saying "he has always been in command."

Dos Santos, who is praised by some Angolans for his role in ending the civil war, has previously indicated that he was considering retirement and then remained at the country's helm, though this time it appears certain that he will relinquish the post of president.

The only other African leader who has ruled longer - by about a month - is President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, 75, of Equatorial Guinea. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, 93, has been in power since independence from white minority rule in 1980.

Angolan critics have alleged that the ruling party has unfairly used state machinery ahead of the election, noting that most campaign coverage on radio and television stations has focused on the campaign of the MPLA.

Election observers from other African countries will monitor the vote, but the European Union is only sending a small team instead of a full-fledged observer mission because it says the Angolan government wanted to impose restrictions, including limited access to polling stations around the country.

In a statement, Amnesty International said Angola's next leader must work to reverse attacks on freedom of expression and other rights. Criticizing the president is considered a crime against state security in Angola, and peaceful protesters, journalists and others have been jailed for long periods or "forcibly disappeared without a trace," the group said.</s>LUANDA (Reuters) - Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has been in power since 1979, will not stand for re-election at national polls due to be held next year, a ruling party document showed on Friday.

Joao Lourenco, the defence minister and vice president of the ruling MPLA party, was approved by its key decision-making body as its standard bearer to succeed Dos Santos after the president proposed him a day earlier.

The party said on Thursday that rumours circulating in social media that Dos Santos was ill were untrue.

Angolans have long speculated about the president's next move since he said last March that he would stand down in 2018.

The next parliamentary election is due in 2017 and the leader of the winning party will then become president.

MPLA leader Dos Santos, a communist-trained oil engineer, was re-appointed to a new five-year term in 2012 after his party won a landslide win. After his announcement in March, it was widely assumed that he would run for re-election next year and then stand down in 2018.

"Our goal is to win the elections with qualified majority or at least with absolute majority," Dos Santos told the party's central committee at a meeting in Luanda in March.

"And the secret rests in the discipline, in the union and cohesion of everybody around our candidates in the process of the electoral campaign and in the moment of voting," he said.

Angola, a member of OPEC and currently Africa’s top oil producer, has been hit hard by the slump in global crude prices. Oil export revenues account for more than 90 percent of its foreign exchange revenues.

Sub-Saharan Africa's third largest economy has held discussions with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund about possible financial assistance.

A senior party official who asked not be named said the proposal to put forward Lourenco as the party's presidential candidate was yet to be formally made public, as his selection had not yet been communicated to the MPLA's grassroots.

Analyst Luis Jimbo, director of the Angolan Institute for Electoral Systems and Democracy, said Dos Santos's decision came as a surprise.

Jimbo said the president had been expected to run as the leader of the MPLA, adding that "this was possibly a last-hour decision" by Dos Santos who felt he did not have the strength to run a campaign.

Critics accuse Dos Santos - Africa's second longest ruling leader after Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo - of mismanaging Angola's oil wealth and making an elite, mainly his family and political allies, vastly rich in a country ranked amongst the world's most corrupt.

His inscrutable public demeanour belies his tight control of Angola, a former Portuguese colony where he has overseen an oil-backed economic boom and the reconstruction of infrastructure devastated by a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002. But growth has stalled sharply as oil prices fell.</s>The Latest on Angola's election (all times local):

Polls are now closed in Angola, where voters have been choosing the southern African country's first new president in almost four decades. Angola's election commission has called the vote peaceful.

President Jose Eduardo dos Santos will step down after 38 years in power in an oil-rich country beset by widespread poverty and corruption.

About 9.3 million Angolans were registered to vote for the 220-member National Assembly. The winning party will then select the president.

Angolans are voting in an election in which the defense minister is the front-runner to succeed President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who will relinquish the post after 38 years in power.

About 9.3 million Angolans are registered to vote on Wednesday for the 220-member National Assembly; the winning party will then select the president. Dos Santos' chosen successor is Joao Lourenco, the defense minister and a former governor.

The ruling MPLA party won the 2012 election with 72 percent of votes amid allegations of irregularities. The UNITA party, a former rebel force that fought the MPLA in Angola's civil war, is the main opposition challenger.

Oil-rich Angola is beset by poverty, corruption and human rights concerns, though some analysts believe new leadership could open the way to more accountability.</s>After decades in power, Angola's President Jose Eduardo dos Santos will not take part in Wednesday's elections. Many Angolans now hope for a political change, as Antonio Cascais reports from Luanda....
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• Angolan Voters See First Poll in Decades Without Longtime President</s>Polling stations opened Wednesday across Angola in an election that marks the end of President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos’s 38-year reign, with his MPLA party predicted to retain power.

 AFP journalists reported a slow start to voting at one station in the capital Luanda where Dos Santos and his chosen successor Joao Lourenco are expected to cast their ballots later Wednesday.

 Dos Santos’s unexpected retirement—reportedly prompted by ill health—has triggered the biggest political transition in decades for Angola, a leading oil exporter in Africa.—APP</s>President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has ruled Angola since 1979, will not contest the August 23 election, marking a historic change in the oil-rich country.

The constitution does not provide for a presidential election, but says that the post of head of state goes to the chief of the party which wins general elections.

These are the key dates of Dos Santos’s long, iron-fisted rule:

On September 20, 1979, Dos Santos takes office as Angola’s president after the death of the country’s first post-independence leader, Agostinho Neto.

Since just before Angola’s independence from Portugal in 1975, the pro-Soviet People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) has been locked in a civil war with the pro-Western National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA).

While apartheid South Africa backs UNITA, the MPLA has the backing of Cuban forces.

South African forces finally withdraw in 1988, while the last Cuban soldiers leave the country in 1991.

In May 1991, Dos Santos and UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi reach a peace agreement which includes elections.

On September 29-30, 1992, the first democratic general elections supervised by the United Nations are won by the MPLA.

But UNITA rejects the results and the second round of voting is cancelled as heavy fighting resumes.

From January to March 1993, UNITA’s fight for Huambo in the centre of the country leaves an estimated 12 000 people dead.

According to the United Nations, 25,000 people are killed in 1993 at Kuito, also in the centre.

On November 20, 1994, new peace accords are signed in Zambia paving the way for the disarmament of UNITA and its participation in government.

In 1997 UNITA deputies take up their seats and a unity government is formed, but the civil war resumes the following year.

On February 22, 2002, UNITA leader Savimbi is killed by the army in western Angola.

On April 4 the army and UNITA sign a ceasefire agreement to end the civil war, which has left at least 500 000 dead in 27 years of fighting.

On September 5, 2008, the MPLA wins an overwhelming victory in the first peacetime elections.

Four years later the party scores another resounding win, scooping 71.8% of the vote, and on September 26, 2012, Dos Santos is sworn in after being formally elected for the first time.

Demonstrations that began in spring 2011 gather momentum as people take to the streets to call for greater freedom of expression, democracy and better living conditions.

The protests are banned and put down by the police, often violently.

Nongovernmental organisations denounce violence and persecution against members of the opposition, as well as pressure on journalists and rights activists.

In June 2015, more than a dozen activists, including rapper Luaty Beirao, are arrested in Luanda on accusations of rebelling against Dos Santos.

On March 28, 2016, a total of 17 youth activists, including Beirao, are sentenced to two to eight years in jail, but then mostly granted amnesty later in the year.

In June 2016 the nomination of Dos Santos’s elder daughter Isabel, Africa’s richest woman according to Forbes magazine, is appointed to head up the national oil firm Sonangol, and his opponents accuse her of getting rich on her father’s coat-tails.

On February 3, 2017, Dos Santos confirms he will not run in elections planned for August, naming his loyal defence minister Joao Lourenco as the candidate to succeed him.

On July 20 he returns to Luanda, two weeks after leaving for Spain, as rumours about his health swirl.</s>Jose Eduardo dos Santos is stepping down after 38 years as president of Angola but is he really giving up power?...
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• Angolan Voters See First Poll in Decades Without Longtime President</s>When Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos steps down after Wednesday's elections, it will bring to an end a 38-year reign dominated by his unrelenting authoritarian style.

Though seldom seen in public, he has been a looming presence in daily life for as long as most Angolans can remember, maintaining fierce control over the country throughout its devastating civil war and recent oil boom.

Dos Santos first became president in 1979, making him Africa's second-longest-serving leader -- one month shy of Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

Now aged 74 and reportedly in poor health, he announced earlier this year that he would not stand for re-election, and moved to ensure that close ally Joao Lourenco would be his successor.

Until the 27-year civil war ended in 2002, Dos Santos presided over a country torn apart by conflict as his People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) government fought rebels led by the UNITA group.

He has been credited with leading Angola out of the war, moving away from hardline Marxism and fostering a post-war oil boom and foreign investment surge that has transformed central Luanda.

But his rule has also been criticised as secretive and corrupt, with Angola's citizens suffering abject poverty as his family and the elite enriched themselves.

Dos Santos has been "an accomplished and shrewd economic and political dealmaker with an instinct for political survival," according to Alex Vines of the British think-tank Chatham House.

He is married to glamorous former air hostess Ana Paula, who is 18 years his junior, and his children include Isabel, the head of the state-owned Sonangol oil company and reputed to be Africa's richest woman -- worth $3 billion (2.55 billion euros).

From humble beginnings as the son of a bricklayer, Dos Santos joined the MPLA as a teenager and rose quickly through party ranks as a fighter during Angola's struggle for independence from Portugal.

After stints in Kinshasa and Brazzaville, he went to Azerbaijan to study petroleum engineering, returning fluent in Russian and French, in addition to his mother-tongue Portuguese.

In 1979, following the sudden death from cancer of Angola's liberation president Agostinho Neto, Dos Santos -- then the planning minister -- was sworn in as president.

A presidential election in 1992 was aborted ahead of a second-round vote when his battlefield rival Jonas Savimbi claimed the vote was rigged.

The civil war reignited until Savimbi was killed in 2002.

During the 2012 election campaign, Dos Santos made a series of unexpected appearances at public rallies, wearing colourful T-shirts and promising better universities and jobs for young people.

But his policies remained little changed after the vote.

As head of the military, police and cabinet, the president has operated with few constraints.

He has chosen senior judges and had MPLA allies in all public agencies, including the supposedly independent electoral commission.

The state keeps a firm hand on the media, and his picture often appears on the front pages of newspapers as well as on countless billboards and posters.

Angola has become a major supplier of oil to China, and Dos Santos has built close ties with the Asian powerhouse.

But while he has sought to present himself as a rock of stability, rights activists and opposition members accuse him of systematic repression.

In a 2013 interview for Brazilian television, Dos Santos said his rule had been "too long, too long," but added that decades of war "meant we couldn't strengthen state institutions or even carry out the normal process of democratisation."

Dos Santos has reportedly received cancer treatment in Barcelona over several years.

Always immaculately dressed, the Angolan leader has split his time between his presidential palace in Luanda and a second residence south of the capital.

He has rarely travelled abroad on official business, but is said to enjoy music and poetry as well as cooking fish, and was once a keen footballer.
Voters in Angola go to the polls to elect 220 National Assembly members. The leader of the winning party will become the new president, following the retirement of José Eduardo dos Santos, who has held the role since 1979.