João Lourenço

Biography

Joao Lourenco was born in 1954 into a politically active family; his father, a doctor and nationalist, was imprisoned for three years by the Portuguese colonial authorities. He studied at the Industrial Institute of Luanda and in 1974 was among the first MPLA fighters to enter Angola through Cabinda after the fall of Portuguese rule.

He fought in the independence war and the civil war, trained as an artillery officer and political commissar, and from 1978 to 1982 studied at the Lenin Military-Political Academy in the Soviet Union. Back in Angola he became governor of Moxico Province in 1984 and held a series of party posts, including MPLA secretary for information and head of the party's parliamentary group in the 1990s.

Elected MPLA secretary-general in 1998, he fell out of favour after showing interest in succeeding President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and left the post in 2003. He was first vice-president of the National Assembly from 2003 to 2014, then minister of defence from 2014 to 2017.

Chosen to head the MPLA list, he became president after the party won the August 2017 election and took office that September; he succeeded dos Santos as party chairman in 2018. As president he decriminalised homosexuality and chaired the Southern African Development Community in 2023-24 and the African Union in 2025-26, mediating in the eastern Congo conflict.