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Joao Lourenco

Also Known As Joao Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, Lourenço

President of Angola

Education

  • Industrial Institute of Luanda and later participated in the liberation struggle in Ponta Negra -
  • master's degree in Historical Sciences -

Overview

João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço GColIH is an Angolan politician who has served as the third president of Angola since 26 September 2017. Previously, he was the minister of defence from 2014 to 2017. In September 2018, he became the chairman of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the ruling party. He was the party's secretary-general from 1998 to 2003.

João Lourenço was designated in December 2016 to occupy the party's number one position in the August 2017 legislative election. In terms of the 2010 constitution, "the individual heading the national list of the political party or coalition of political parties which receives the most votes in general elections ... shall be elected President of the Republic and Head of the Executive" (Article 109). As the MPLA won a majority of 150 seats, Lourenço automatically became President of Angola, succeeding José Eduardo dos Santos, who had been in power for 38 years. Lourenço was officially sworn into office on 26 September 2017.

He began his military career fighting against the Portuguese in the Angolan War of Independence and fought as a member of the MPLA in the Angolan Civil War. Lourenço conducted his training in artillery and then became a political officer in the MPLA. In 1978, Lourenço traveled to the Soviet Union and studied at the Lenin Military-Political Academy, where he furthered his military training and completed a master's degree in Historical Sciences. He later returned to Angola in 1982. Now an artillery general, Lourenç

Early Life

Lourenço Born in 1954, Lourenço grew up in a politically engaged family of ten children. His father, Sequeira João Lourenço (1923–1999), a native of Malanje, was a doctor and nationalist, who served three years of imprisonment in Portuguese Angola for illegal political activity. His mother, Josefa Gonçalves Cipriano Lourenço (1928–1997), a seamstress, was a native of Namibe. He received both a primary and secondary Portuguese-language education in Bié Province and Luanda

Lourenço studied at the Industrial Institute of Luanda and later participated in the liberation struggle in Ponta Negra, in August 1974, where he was part of the first group of MPLA soldiers to enter Angolan territory via Miconge, towards the city of Cabinda after the fall of the Portuguese colonial regime

Career

  • President of Angola -

Other Activites

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Recognition

Brazil:

 Collar of the Order of the Southern Cross (25 August 2023)

 Cape Verde:

 1st Class of the Amílcar Cabral Order [fr] (16 March 2022)

 Cuba:

 Order of José Martí (01 July 2019)

 Guinea:

 Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit (30 July 2021)

 Italy:

ITA OMRI 2001 GC-GCord BAR Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (19 May 2023)

 Ivory Coast

 Grand Cross of the National Order of the Ivory Coast (28 June 2024)

 Namibia:

 First Class of the Order of the Most Ancient Welwitschia mirabilis (4 May 2018)

 Portugal:

 Grand Collar of the Order of Prince Henry (22 November 2018)

 Senegal:

 Grand Cross of the National Order of the Lion (23 October 2022)

 Serbia

 2nd class of the Order of the Republic of Serbia (15 February 2022)

 South Africa:

 Order of South Africa (12 December 2024)

 Spain:

 Collar of the Order of Civil Merit (31 January 2023)

Reference

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