ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the constitution of the political leadership and, by extension, the political culture in Angola. It analyses the role and performance of the MPLA government in Angola. The chapter analyses the challenges of the transition from liberation movement to civic government and to democratic state-building in Angola. Anti-colonialism not only took the form of military confrontation, but also aimed at constructing an alternative history of Angolan society in order to convince people of the advantages of political independence. As Mário Pinto de Andrade notes in his interview, arguing that MPLA was founded two years before FNLA was a matter of life and death. He was the founder and first president of the MPLA and, with other colleagues, had written the MPLA's first statutes. When one MPLA leader was killed because he had criticised the party's president, Agostinho Neto, many MPLA members abandoned the frontlines of the movement, went into exile or crossed over to FNLA.
