Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola

Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, Angolan political party that has ruled the country since 1975. It began as a liberation movement that engaged in a bloody war for independence during the time that Angola was a colony of Portugal.

The Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) was founded in 1956 by the merging of two nationalist organizations. It was centered in the country’s capital city of Luanda. From 1962 it was led by Agostinho Neto, who eventually became Angola’s first president. It fought the Portuguese for the independence of Angola in cooperation, but was often in conflict with rival Angolan liberation movements—the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

A 1974 military coup in Portugal led to that country withdrawing from its African colonies in 1975; in Angola, it did so without formally handing power to any of the liberation movements. The MPLA declared independence as the People’s Republic of Angola in November 1975, but was not recognized by all countries. The MPLA, which had the support of Cuba and the Soviet Union, and UNITA, which was supported by South Africa and the United States, continued to fight for control of the country. The FNLA pulled out of the struggle in the late 1970s.

At a national congress in 1977, the MPLA refashioned itself as a Marxist-Leninist party and added the words Party of Labour (PT) to its name. Neto died in Moscow in 1979 and was succeeded by José dos Santos, who gradually shifted the party from its Marxist-Leninist stance to one more conducive to establishing relations with Western countries. Dos Santos stepped down in 2018 and was succeeded by João Lourenço as party leader.

The MPLA was the only legal party of Angola until multiparty elections were held in 1992. UNITA continued to battle Angolan government forces until early in 2002, and an agreement to end the hostilities was signed in April. The MPLA was victorious in the multiparty parliamentary elections held on September 5–6, 2008, the first since 1992, winning about 82 percent of the vote. Although there were some reports of fraud and intimidation, the elections were deemed valid by international observers. It continued to dominate in subsequent elections, albeit by diminishing margins, winning 72 percent in 2012, 61 percent in 2017, and 51 percent in 2022.