Angola’s ruling elite are perfecting a system that would make kleptocrats blush, draining billions from the nation’s oil wealth while crushing anyone who dares to speak. The current Angola civil society crackdown intensified in late July 2025, when at least 22 people were reportedly killed after security forces opened fire on protesters objecting to a 33 percent diesel price increase.
Human rights groups estimate that more than 1,200 people were arrested in what became the deadliest civil unrest since the civil war ended in 2002. The crackdown was not only a response to fuel prices but part of a wider pattern of political control tied to resource plunder and the management of dissent in the lead-up to the 2027 elections.
The day before the deadly crackdown, President João Lourenço’s government pushed through its controversial NGO Statute Law. Civil society groups had fought the legislation for nearly two years, warning that it would subordinate constitutional freedoms to executive discretion.
Those fears have largely been realised. The law grants authorities the power to suspend organisations for up to 180 days without judicial review based solely on what it terms “strong indications” of money laundering or terrorism. Anonymous denunciations are permitted. Mandatory financial surveillance is imposed. Legal scholars warn that the statute conflicts with Angola’s constitutional guarantees of association and due process.
More than 100 civil society organisations protested the law’s passage, recognising it for what it represents: a legal framework designed to silence critics.
The timing was no coincidence. Angola’s Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) has governed the country since independence in 1975, but its dominance is increasingly fragile. More than half the population lives in poverty, while state-owned enterprises, especially Sonangol, have been repeatedly cited in audits and investigations for opaque financial practices involving billions of dollars.
While precise figures are obscured by institutional opacity, conservative estimates drawn from audits, industry data, and investigative reporting suggest that between 2023 and 2025 oil revenues fell short by approximately 5 to 10 billion dollars due to underinvoicing and diversion schemes.
Discrepancies in the diamond sector added an estimated 1 to 2 billion dollars in losses. Most recent audits revealed between 2 and 3 billion dollars in unaccounted funds from 2024 deals alone. Timber and mineral smuggling into the Democratic Republic of Congo is estimated to cost Angola a further 1 to 2 billion dollars annually.
Sonangol plays a central role in Angola’s oil sector and public finances. The state oil company carries out a range of quasi-fiscal operations that take place outside the standard national budget process.
Oil-backed loans, especially those tied to Chinese financing, have trapped Angola in recurring debt cycles. A 2025 restructuring deferred roughly 10 billion dollars but at high interest rates that critics argue enable continued elite siphoning.
There is already a growing concern about the Lobito Corridor project launched in 2023 with the backing of United States to facilitate mineral exports, with early contracts reportedly overpriced by 15 to 20 percent.
Taken together, corruption is estimated to drain between 10 and 15 percent of Angola’s GDP annually. The country’s score on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index deteriorated to 32 out of 100 in 2025.
President Lourenço came to power in 2017 promising reform. His anti-corruption drive, however, has been selective. While it targeted figures linked to previous administrations, new patronage networks have flourished under his leadership. Several of Lourenço’s political allies in Sonangol and key ministries have been linked by investigative reporting to offshore shell structures allegedly used to divert between 1 and 2 billion dollars during 2024 and 2025. Judicial probes, when they occur, rarely result in convictions or meaningful asset recovery.
Foreign actors who enable the rot remain embedded in the system. Chinese firms continue to dominate opaque debt arrangements. Western oil companies are not left out, BP and TotalEnergies, operate under production-sharing agreements whose cost structures critics and auditors argue lack transparency. International banks have been implicated in routing funds through tax havens, yet accountability remains elusive.
Civil society has become the regime’s primary target precisely because it threatens this arrangement. The NGO law complements an expanding arsenal of repressive legislation, including the National Security Law and the Anti-Vandalism Law, which allows prison sentences of up to 25 years for protest-related offences involving vandalism.
Churches and trade unions are harassed whenever they speak out against poverty or corruption. Human rights organisations report prison access being blocked, interference with detainee communications, and mounting restrictions on their operations. Any group deemed unregistered risks closure if labelled “subversive,” while government-aligned organisations are promoted to provide political cover.
The youth-led protests that took place in July and August 2025 exposed the underlying fragility of the system. Demonstrations occurred in Luanda, Huambo, Lubango, and Benguela, featuring roadblocks, looting, and attacks on MPLA offices. Protesters demanded jobs, fairer wealth distribution, and an end to corruption. They were overwhelmingly young, with an estimated 63 percent under the age of 24, in a country where youth unemployment exceeds 50 percent.
Security forces are alleged to have used live ammunition and tear gas. Government officials acknowledged that at least one police officer was among those killed, while hospitals reported nearly 200 injured.
The government claims that civil society regulations are necessary to combat terrorism and money laundering, yet no court in Angola has ever proven that a civil society organisation has committed an act of terrorism. The real sources of corruption are widely known. Sonangol’s opacity, patronage networks tied to the presidency, and rigged procurement processes have created a system in which billions disappear while an estimated 52 percent of the population lives in poverty and inflation ranges between 18 and 25 percent.
Under pressure from the International Monetary Fund, Angola committed to eliminating fuel subsidies by the end of 2025 as part of fiscal consolidation under a 3.7 billion dollar Extended Fund Facility. The government caved, removing subsidies that had helped ordinary Angolans afford transport and food. Officials argue the move was necessary to reduce budget deficits and service public debt estimated at 58 billion dollars, or 63 percent of GDP. Yet there has been no equivalent effort to dismantle the corruption networks that drain comparable sums annually.
Asset recovery measures and anti-corruption initiatives implemented as part of broader governance reforms have yielded little or no substantial results.
The crisis in Angola points to a familiar pattern in Africa where former liberation groups now in government use gained power for extraction and repression. As the 2027 elections approach and economic conditions worsen, the MPLA appears determined to eliminate institutional checks on its authority. The NGO law ensures that when the next wave of protests erupts, fewer organisations will be able to document abuses, provide legal aid, or hold officials accountable.
Civil society now operates in a climate of suspicion and uncertainty. Organisations face arbitrary surveillance, funding restrictions, and the constant threat of suspension or closure. Self-censorship is spreading as activists weigh personal risk against public duty. Despite domestic and international opposition, the law was ratified by President Lourenço in May 2025. United Nations Special Rapporteurs warned that the statute imposed excessive controls and granted unwarranted power to government. Their concerns were ignored.
The data tell the story of a system designed to fail its people while enriching a narrow elite. More than one-third of the population lives on less than 2.15 dollars per day. The level of inequality is high, with a Gini coefficient of 51.3. Economic growth is estimated at around 2.6 percent. Oil accounts for approximately 95 percent of exports and about 80 percent of government revenue. Consumer prices and import costs remain elevated across multiple sectors.
Angola stands as a warning. Resource wealth without accountability breeds not only poverty but also resistance, which in turn leads to repression. The country has withdrawn from certain multilateral arrangements, entered new financial agreements, and implemented a range of policy reforms.
The number of deaths during the July 2025 protests showed what happens when desperation meets repression. The NGO law ensures that future episodes of state violence will face fewer witnesses and less scrutiny. This is the MPLA’s vision for Angola: a country where oil billions flow offshore, poverty deepens, and dissent is met with tear gas, bullets, or a 180-day suspension without judicial oversight. The war on civil society is not a by-product of governance failure. It is the condition that allows it to continue.
