LUANDA: Angola’s President Jose Eduardo dos Santos yesterday unveiled proposals for his cabinet following his election win last month, keeping his economic policy team in their posts in the government of Africa’s second-largest oil producer.
Dos Santos, who has been in power since 1979 and is Africa’s second-longest serving leader after Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, has started consultations to form the government based on an “indicative list” of 35 ministers, the presidency said in a statement.
Finance Minister Carlos Lopes and Economy Minister Abraao Gourgel are down to retain their posts, while Jose Botelho de Vasconcelos will continue to head the oil ministry.
The 70-year-old president’s ruling MPLA party won an election on August 31, obtaining 72 percent of the votes in only the second polls held since a 27-year civil war in the southern African nation ended a decade ago.
The main opposition party UNITA - which lost the civil war against the MPLA a decade ago - and two smaller parties had challenged the election results but their appeals were thrown out by the elections commission and the Constitutional Court. Reuters
