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ANGOLA-POLITICS
Angolan ex-president’s daughter suspended from parliament
LUANDA, Oct 30, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Angola’s parliament has suspended a
daughter of former president Jose Eduardo dos Santos for “unjust enrichment”
as his successor seeks to crack down on nepotism past and present.
Dos Santos appointed several family members to key economic and political
positions during his 38-year rule, which ended after he stepped down in
September 2017.
Welwitschia dos Santos, nicknamed “Tchize”, was elected to parliament in
2008 and joined the central committee of the ruling Movement for the
Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in 2016.
The National Assembly late on Tuesday voted to suspend Welwitschia — one
of the ex-president’s six children — from parliament, saying her absenteeism
from the body amounted to “unjust enrichment”.
Tchize, the former president’s second daughter, moved to Britain last year
after claiming Angola’s secret services were threatening her.
Lower profile than her half-sister Isabel — a billionaire businesswoman
appointed to head the state oil company during her father’s reign — Tchize
was an influential figure in Angolan media and controlled one of the
country’s leading advertising agencies.
From Britain, Tchize has repeatedly used WhatsApp to blast her father’s
successor Joao Lourenco.
In her latest recording she accused parliament of political persecution and
claimed she did not choose to leave Angola.
“I had to flee because I was being threatened with death by the MPLA,”
Tchize said via WhatsApp on Tuesday.
“I am completely censured by public press and even by most private media
(outlets) controlled by people linked to the regime,” she added.
The MPLA had already threatened to suspend Tchize’s mandate in May for
spending more than 90 consecutive days abroad.
Lourenco has launched a large-scale purge of the administration and public
companies, mainly targeting dos Santos’ relatives.
The president dismissed Isabel dos Santos from her position as chair of
state oil company Sonangol two months after he took office.
Her brother Jose Filomeno, who was appointed in 2013 by his father as head
of Angola’s sovereign fund, was also dismissed from his post in January 2018.
Most members of the dos Santos family have moved abroad.
Lourenco is struggling to wean Angola’s economy off of oil, which accounts
for one-third of the former Portuguese colony’s GDP and more than 90 percent
of exports.
The southwestern African country is still recovering from a 27-year civil
war, which ended in 2002, and the global fall in oil prices in 2014.
BSS/AFP/RY/1530 hrs