Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos announced Friday he will not run in August elections, ending 37 years in power and naming his defence minister as candidate to succeed him, AFP news agency reports.
The 74-year-old has been president since September 1979. He is Africa’s second-longest serving leader.
Dos Santos had earlier said he would step down in 2018.
Speaking in a meeting of the ruling MPLA party in Luanda Dos Santos said that “the party approved the name of the candidate heading the list in the August elections as (Defence Minister) Joao Manuel Goncalves Lourenco”.
Lourenco had emerged as the probable next president late last year at another meeting of People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola, AFP reports.
After constitutional changes in 2010, Angola does not directly elect a president, but the leader of the winning party automatically becomes head of state.
