In the weeks following the protests sparked by the increase in diesel prices that paralyzed Angola, leaving at least 30 people dead and 1,515 arrested, the government of President João Lourenço has moved to suppress further unrest in the streets.
This moment of instability and political turbulence, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of independence and of uninterrupted rule by the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), raises uncertainties about the next presidential election scheduled for 2027.
The demonstrations began on July 12 in the capital, Luanda, and in the following weeks spread to six other provinces. By early August, they culminated in a taxi drivers’ strike, street demonstrations, barricades, looting of markets, and police brutality.
A new strike by taxi drivers – the workers who operate the shared minibus system that serves as the country’s main form of popular transportation – was scheduled for August 11 through Sunday the 17th. Before it began, however, the presidents of four associations that had called the strike were arrested by Angola’s Criminal Investigation Service (SIC).
They remain detained, along with Rodrigo Catimba, vice president of the National Association of Taxi Drivers of Angola (Anata), who had been arrested days earlier. His release had been one of the central demands of the new strike. The union leaders face charges including “incitement to violence,” “attacks on transportation security,” and involvement in “disorderly acts.”
Protests had been planned to accompany the new taxi strike, but were converted into a “stay-at-home” campaign: citizens were urged not to go out, but also not to go to work. According to movements interviewed by BdF, around 30% of Luanda’s population adhered to the initiative on August 11.
In the days that followed, as police patrols increased in peripheral neighborhoods and the government issued statements urging citizens to maintain “civic and orderly behavior,” the population gradually returned to work.
“A lot of groups decided to allow families to mourn their dead before restarting a new wave of protests. Because the government is keeping the diesel price at 400 kwanzas (about US$0.44), and soon will raise gasoline as well. So these protests cannot stop,” said Angolan activist Laura Macedo.
The strong participation of youth and the lack of centralized leadership are, according to activists interviewed, what distinguish this movement from previous mobilizations in Angola. The protests were generally called by a coalition of organizations under the banner of the Movement Against Fuel Price Increases.
At 63, Laura, a veteran of many protests, said she was encouraged to see “so many young people” who “showed up from social media.” “People even introduced themselves with their nicknames. ‘Look, I’m so-and-so from TikTok, I’m so-and-so from Facebook,’” she recalled.
“This is not just a wave of protests against higher fuel prices,” emphasized activist José Gomes Hata, from the Terceira Divisão movement. “It is 50 years of people trying to speak and being silenced. It is a cry for freedom,” he said.
The uprising and the shootings
The increase in diesel prices from 300 to 400 kwanzas per liter took effect on July 1st, hitting a population already struggling with inflation of 27.5%. According to the Agência de Noticias Fides, eight in every ten Angolans work in the informal sector, often with very low wages.
“This is not something that just happened now. It is the result of a historical deterioration of life. We have extremely high levels of government corruption, and for years we have seen the abyss between the ruling class and the rest of the population,” analyzed Laura Macedo.
The first protest, on July 12, was prevented by police from following its planned route and ended with two demonstrators injured in the face by tear gas canisters.
The following week, the student movement joined the mobilization, combining the fuel issue with opposition to an announced increase of up to 20.74% in private school tuition fees. On July 19, the country experienced an eight-hour internet blackout.
By July 26, the third consecutive Saturday of demonstrations, Angolans once again took to the streets. This time they accepted the route imposed by the authorities. “And what happened? Just to show who is in charge, again we were not allowed to reach our destination,” Laura described.
Then came the taxi drivers, known as candongueiros, who called for a strike from July 28 to 30. “They are the ones who really hold power in this country,” smiled Reinaldo*, an Angolan economist and university professor, explaining that with no public transportation system, movement in Angola depends on these workers.
“A taxi drivers’ strike always worries the government. Without them, the country does not function,” added Laura. “And there is always police violence. A taxi strike always means beatings,” she said.
On the eve of the strike, social media was flooded with fake news and contradictory messages, some claiming the strike was canceled, others confirming it. In the end, it went ahead, and the population, initially asked simply to stay home, took to the streets in support of the drivers, blocking roads with burning tires and preventing transport by those trying to break the strike.
Beyond Luanda, protests spread to Huíla, Malanje, Benguela, Cuango, Icolo, and Bengo. Markets were looted, and from the second day of the strike, police began killing. “Most of the deaths did not happen during the looting. Afterwards, the police began entering neighborhoods and shooting indiscriminately at the population,” described Hata.
One video went viral worldwide, becoming a symbol of denunciations of police violence in Angola. On a dirt street lined with brick and wood houses, people ran as smoke rose in the background. Shots rang out from the Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR), an elite wing of the National Police. A woman in a dress was shot in the back, falling face-first to the ground. Gunfire intensified as, for a moment, she sat up bleeding, struggling to rise. “Mamã,” her teenage son called. Ana Silvia Mubiala died there.
Later, in an interview with Rádio Despertar, her son Eli João Ngombo said they had gone out “to buy Omo [detergent]” when “they saw many people running.” In addition to Eli, Ana Silvia left behind five other children, one only seven months old.
As the population mourned its dead and took to the streets with banners reading “João Lourenço’s boss is the IMF” and “Fuel prices rise, stomachs go empty,” another video went viral: the 50th birthday party of the chief of staff’s wife, Eldretudes Costa, featuring waiters producing dry-ice smoke over a banquet of lobster and shrimp.
On July 31, the day after the strike ended, Interior Minister Manuel Homem promised to “act firmly against those who, for political or opportunistic reasons, try, unsuccessfully, to plunge the country into chaos.”
President João Lourenço spoke only the following day, August 1. “Whoever orchestrated and carried out this criminal action has been defeated,” he declared in a televised address to the nation.
Popular movements are now organizing fundraising campaigns to help pay for the funerals of those killed by police. According to activist Laura Macedo, the number of victims is above 35. “We are still counting. We want not just a number, but names. We are conducting a tally in neighborhoods with help from residents,” she explained.
“There has never been this kind of violence perpetrated by the police. There has also never been looting of warehouses on this scale,” Macedo added. While she acknowledged that hunger and poverty drove some of the food thefts, she noticed a pattern in both the targeted stores and the individuals leading the looting.
“You can see in the images: people with the physical build of athletes, wearing caps, sunglasses, and masks, right in the middle of the crowd, always the first to enter the shops. We believe they were infiltrators to, as we say here, ‘wet the soup,’” she said. The main supermarket chains looted were AngoMart and Arreiou.
On August 4, the Monday after the strike, the Lourenço government announced a 50-billion-kwanza (about US$60 million) credit line through the state-owned Banco de Poupança e Crédito (BPC) to support companies affected by the “unrest.”
The following day, a message from a coalition of seven taxi driver associations circulated by cell phone, declaring that after the “arbitrary detention” of Anata’s vice president and the exhaustion of legal remedies, they had “unanimously decided to resume the suspension of taxi services.” This time, the strike was to last seven days.
But it never began. The presidents of Anata, the Angola Taxi Drivers Association (ATA), the Community Taxi Cooperative (CTCA), and the Taxi and Motorcycle Cooperative (CTMF) were all arrested.
On August 11, the day the strike was set to start, João Lourenço convened a meeting of Angola’s National Security Council, which issued a communiqué encouraging “defense and security bodies to continue with measures to guarantee order.”
BdF requested a statement from the Angolan government regarding the wave of protests, arrests, and deaths, as well as the potential increase in gasoline prices, but received no response.
Crisis of legitimacy
After the July protests, even members of the MPLA expressed concern about the government’s handling of the crisis. João Pinto, a member of parliament for the ruling party, told journalists that the government had “acted in a way that did not match the country’s history” and admitted that it was “a mistake not to have anticipated the people’s reaction.”
For political scientist and journalist Ilídio Manuel, the demonstrations showed “a widespread discontent among the population.” He pointed out that unemployment among youth has reached 60% and that “those who manage to find jobs face precarious conditions and wages that are not enough to cover basic expenses.”
The legitimacy crisis has been deepened by corruption scandals. Since João Lourenço took office in 2017, promising to fight graft and revive the economy, a series of cases have come to light.
The best-known was the downfall of Isabel dos Santos, daughter of former president José Eduardo dos Santos. Once considered Africa’s richest woman, she was accused of embezzling more than US$1 billion through state oil company Sonangol and other firms. In 2020, Luanda Leaks exposed details of her international network of shell companies, prompting lawsuits in several countries.
“But corruption has not ended. It has simply shifted hands,” said José Gomes Hata. “What we see now is that those close to the president benefit from contracts, state positions, and control over the economy.”
International context
Another central element behind the fuel price hikes is Angola’s agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In 2018, the government secured a US$3.7 billion loan, conditioned on austerity measures and the gradual removal of fuel subsidies.
“These are measures that hit the poorest the hardest,” explained activist Laura Macedo. “The government claims that subsidies benefit the rich, but in Angola, diesel is the backbone of everything: food transport, taxis, and agriculture.”
In July, the government announced that it would cut subsidies again in September, this time raising gasoline prices.
At the same time, Angola is trying to attract foreign investors. It remains one of Africa’s largest oil producers, but production has been declining. In recent months, João Lourenço has traveled to the U.S., Europe, and Asia to present new opportunities in oil, gas, and mining.
“While the president courts investors abroad, people here can’t afford food or transportation,” commented economist Reinaldo. “That contradiction is exploding on the streets.”
The road to 2027
The protests also raise questions about Angola’s next presidential election, scheduled for 2027. The MPLA has governed continuously since independence in 1975, and despite growing discontent, it still controls state institutions, the army, and the courts.
In 2022, João Lourenço was re-elected with 51% of the vote, in a contest marred by accusations of fraud. His main rival, Adalberto Costa Júnior of UNITA, rejected the result but was unable to mobilize large-scale protests.
“This time feels different,” argued Laura. “The anger is not only political, it is social. It is about hunger, fuel, education. It is people saying they can’t take it anymore.”
According to José Gomes Hata, the wave of demonstrations “has created a new generation of activists, who are not afraid of repression.” He believes that this could reshape Angola’s political landscape in the coming years.
“We don’t know what will happen in 2027. But one thing is clear: people are losing fear. And once fear is gone, everything changes.”
*Name changed for security reasons.
