Isabel dos Santos, one of the world’s richest women, has hinted that she may look to run for the Angolan presidency in an interview with the BBC.
The dos Santos family is synonymous with power in Angola after her father, José Eduardo dos Santos, served a 38-year term as president.
However, the dos Santos family is currently at the heart of a financial scandal, amid corruption allegations speculating that they have deprived the Angolan state of over $2 billion.
José Filomeno dos Santos, Isabel’s half-brother, is currently on trial in the African country having pleaded not guilty to corruption allegations that he stole $500 million from Angola’s Sovereign Wealth Fund.
Furthermore, as part of the wider investigations into the family’s dealings, a court in Luanda ordered Isabel dos Santos' assets in Angola to be frozen in December.
46-year-old Isabel, whose fortune is estimated to be worth $2.2 billion by Forbes, denies the accusations.
She said: “These are false allegations and this is part of… an orchestrated attack by the current government that is completely politically motivated.”
Controversy surrounding the dos Santos family was first flung before the public eye after her father’s hand-picked successor, Joao Lourenço, was appointed president in September 2017.
Following his appointment, he sacked Isabel dos Santos from her position as chief of Sonangol, Angola’s state-owned oil firm, despite her having only been given the position the previous year.
Despite being affiliated with the family through the same political party, the MPLA, Lourenço has spent the duration of his term targeting its members as part of a wider crackdown on corruption in the state.
Dos Santos said: “President Lourenço is fighting for absolute power. There's a strong wish to neutralise any influence that [former] President Dos Santos might still have in the MPLA", adding that she was being used as a "scapegoat".
She continued: "If a different candidate would appear [ahead of the 2021 presidential election] supported by former President Dos Santos or allies linked to him, that would really challenge [Mr Lourenço's] position because his current track record is very, very poor.”
During the interview, dos Santos said that her life was at risk if she were to return to Angola at the present time, but she refused to rule out returning in future and running for the presidency to challenge Lourenço.
She said: “To lead is to serve, so I will do whatever my life takes me.”
Dos Santos also accused Angola’s attorney general of wrongdoing by not allowing her lawyers to view the evidence against her.
She added: “I regret that Angola has chosen this path. I think that we all stand to lose a lot”.
Despite her own sentiment that she and her family are on the wrong end of a personal vendetta, dos Santos’ prospects of displacing Lourenço have been played down by an Oxford academic.
Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, an African politics expert, said: "Isabel doesn't have a strong constituency in her favour inside the party. For now, the party is behind Lourenço, at least when it comes to the targeting of Isabel.
"If he turns what is still a focused vendetta against the Dos Santos family into a systemic clean-up, the MPLA would not accept it and might even rediscover Dos Santos as the guy who enabled all of them to get rich. But there is no sign of this.
"Dos Santos and Isabel remain deeply unpopular in the country and the party alike. I am not writing her off entirely but she is genuinely weakened by these ongoing revelations and her international standing is deteriorating fast.”
Furthermore, dos Santos is currently ineligible to stand because of her Russian mother. Laws in Angola would therefore have to change in order for her to run in the country's 2022 presidential elections.
