João Lourenço

João Lourenço (born March 5, 1954, Lobito, Angola) is an Angolan politician and, since 2017, the president of Angola. He has been a longtime member of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola; MPLA), the former liberation movement that is now Angola’s ruling party, and in September 2018 he became president of the MPLA. He previously served as the country’s minister of defense.

Early years, education, MPLA, and personal life

João Lourenço was born in 1954—when Angola was still a Portuguese colony—to Sequeira João Lourenço, a medical worker, and Josefa Gonçalves Cipriano Lourenço, a seamstress. When Lourenço was young, his father was briefly imprisoned for political activities. Lourenço received his primary and secondary education in Bié province and continued his studies in Luanda.

In 1974 Lourenço joined the MPLA as the Angolan war of independence (which began in 1961) was concluding but as conflicts between Angola’s multiple liberation movements were rising. He was a member of the MPLA fighter group that took over the Cabinda exclave in 1974 and defended it the next year against the forces of another liberation group and its ally, Zaire (later the Democratic Republic of Congo). As Angola gained independence, the new country was immediately plunged into a civil war (1975–2002) when the MPLA declared itself the government of Angola and other liberation movements challenged it for control. Lourenço served in the MPLA’s armed wing, the People’s Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (Forças Armadas Populares de Libertação de Angola; FAPLA) during much of the civil war. In 1978 the MPLA sent Lourenço to the Soviet Union, where he studied until 1982, receiving additional military training and a master’s degree in historical studies at the Lenin Political-Military Academy. He then returned to active duty in Angola and later rose to the rank of three-star general.

In 1986 Lourenço married Ana Afonso Dias Lourenço, an economist who served as a minister in the Angolan government (1999–2012); the couple has six children.

Political career

Lourenço has held a variety of political, military, and party posts. He was appointed as the provincial commissioner (a position equivalent to that of provincial governor) of Moxico (1983–86) and later Benguela (1986–89). He then was head of the National Political Directorate of FAPLA (1989–90). Lourenço became a member of the MPLA’s central committee in 1985 and the party’s political bureau in 1990. He held several posts in the political bureau, including secretary of information (1991–98) and secretary-general (1998–2003), before being named vice president in 2016. He was first vice president of the National Assembly (2003–14) and was appointed minister of defense in 2014.

In 2016 José dos Santos, who had been president of Angola since 1979, announced that he would retire from politics in two years, and Lourenço was among several people rumored to be his successor. In February 2017 the MPLA confirmed that Lourenço would be the party’s presidential candidate in the election later that year. Lourenço relied on his relatively clean image to run under the campaign motto “improve what is good, correct what is bad.” In the general election, held on August 23, the MPLA won about three-fifths of the vote and thus secured the presidency for Lourenço. Several opposition parties disputed the election results, but the country’s Constitutional Court dismissed the claims.

Presidency of Angola

Lourenço was inaugurated as president on September 26, 2017, and promptly moved to affirm his power as well as crack down on corruption. He dismissed dos Santos’s daughter Isabel as head of Angola’s oil company, Sonangol, in November, and in January 2018 he removed dos Santos’s son José Filomeno as head of the country’s sovereign wealth fund. José Filomeno was charged with fraud in March that year and in 2020 was convicted and sentenced to five years in jail. Isabel dos Santos’s Angolan assets were frozen in December 2019. Meanwhile, in September 2018, the elder dos Santos ceded his final position of power, and Lourenço took over as president of the MPLA.

Are you a student?

Get a special academic rate on Britannica Premium.

Subscribe

During Lourenço’s first term as president of Angola, his administration took action to promote economic growth, including steps to privatize state-owned enterprises and to ease requirements for foreign investments in Angola, and the country entered the African Continental Free Trade Agreement. His administration also decriminalized same-sex relationships and prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation. As part of Lourenço’s crackdown on corruption, the government prosecuted several high-profile cases.

Lourenço was once again the MPLA’s presidential candidate in the 2022 general election. Though the MPLA was among the front-runners, he and the party were criticized for not having done enough to tackle corruption, and there was widespread discontent with the country’s ongoing economic troubles. In the August 24, 2022, election, the MPLA saw its vote share cut to little more than half the vote, but as the party retained a majority, Lourenço received a second term as president. The results were again unsuccessfully challenged by opposition parties, and Lourenço was sworn in on September 15, 2022.

Lourenço has played an active role on the regional stage. From 2022 to 2025 he served as the facilitator, on behalf of the African Union, in mediation efforts to end the conflict with the M23 rebel group in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. In February 2025 Lourenço assumed the one-year rotating term as chair of the African Union.