Angola held a funeral on Sunday for long-serving ex-leader Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who died in Spain in July but his burial was delayed by a family request for an autopsy.
Dos Santos died in a clinic in Barcelona on July 8 at the age of 79.
Dos Santos and his family dominated Angolan politics for the 38 years that he ruled until 2017. His once Marxist party, the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), in power for nearly five decades, looks certain to have won Wednesday’s poll.
His rule was marked by a 27-year on-off civil war against U.S.-backed rebels from the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), who he defeated in 2002.
The country also enjoyed an oil-fuelled boom, but more than half the population of more than 30 million live in poverty.
“Today we pay tribute to the former president for the contribution he made to the nation as the Architect of Peace,” Social Affairs Minister Carolina Cerqueira said, using the honorific title dos Santos earned for ending a conflict that killed half a million people.
Heads of state and senior ministers from around the continent, as well as the president of Angola’s former colonial ruler Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, attended.
BY REUTERS