(Bloomberg) -- Isabel dos Santos, the self-exiled daughter of former Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, said she wants to return to her home country and may consider running for president if the opportunity arises.
“One day I hope to return and serve my country,” Dos Santos said in an interview broadcast on YouTube on Thursday. Running for president is “an idea that isn’t strange to me. It can be part of my future,” she said.
Once Africa’s richest woman, Dos Santos has become a target of Angola’s crackdown on corruption spearheaded by Joao Lourenco, who replaced her father as president in 2017. Angolan prosecutors accuse her of causing more than $5 billion in losses to the southwest African nation during her father’s 38-year rule. She’s denied any wrongdoing.
Hundreds of millions of euros worth of Dos Santos’ assets in Angola, Portugal and more recently in the UK have been frozen and Interpol has issued an international warrant for her arrest.
The 51-year-old left Angola in 2018. Since then, she’s built a presence on social media, amassing almost 650,000 followers on Instagram with videos of her life in Dubai, where she’s lived for the past seven years.
Dos Santos said the the accusations she’s facing are politically motivated.
“I think it serves the political agenda of Joao Lourenco,” she said in the interview.
Her comments were made as popular discontent is bubbling in Angola over the high cost of living triggered by the depreciation of the kwanza, rising import prices and the phasing out of fuel subsidies. President Lourenco’s ruling MPLA party faces another general election in 2027 after garnering just 51% in a fiercely contested vote in 2022.
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