Larger than life: Angolan President José Dos Santos’s aloofness - and ruthlessness - is said to be key to his political longevity.
If it was supposed to have been a public relations exercise to boost his flagging international image, tarnished by recent anti-government protests and increasingly critical human rights reports, the consensus is that it appears to have backfired.
President José Eduardo dos Santos's first televised interview in 22 years seems to have only fanned the flames of his critics, who this week have been less than favourably picking apart this rare public appearance.
Even before the 45-minute prerecorded interview was broadcast, people were asking why the president of nearly 34 years decided to give this long-awaited exclusive to private Portuguese broadcaster SIC, rather than to his own loyal, state-owned Televisão Pública de Angola.
One answer is that it was an attempt to polish Angola's image in Portugal after recent and noisy media tours there by the country's two main opposition leaders, Isaías Samakuva and Abel Chivukuvuku.
SIC, which in the past was so critical of Angola that its journalists were once reportedly denied entry visas, appeared to have repaid the favour by handing Dos Santos easy questions, most of which he answered as if he were reading from a script.
Despite this, the 70-year-old still had a dig at his hosts, blaming the legacy of colonialism for his country's under-development, but he stressed his government was committed to sustaining the growth it had enjoyed since the end of the 27-year civil war in 2002 and would focus on "eradicating" poverty.
Interview propaganda
Interviewer Henrique Cymerman made little attempt to challenge his subject on any of his replies.
Nor did he ask any really direct or personal questions, such as, for example, how his daughter Isabel had become Africa's first female billionaire, or about his reaction to recently republished allegations that the president and others collectively pocketed $750-million in an off-the-books debt deal with Russia.
This apparent acquiescence by Cymerman, a highly respected journalist, who in 2012 won the 2012 Daniel Pearl Award from the Anti-Defamation League for investigative reporting, has left many Portuguese embarrassed and Angolans angry.
"The interview propaganda was a disgrace for the Angolan nation and a mockery for the Portuguese," noted Angolan journalist and anti-corruption campaigner Rafael Marques.
"I saw the president for what he is: cynical and unable to show any empathy for the suffering of the people whom he has tormented with his governance for 34 years."
Markus Weimer, an Angolan analyst at Control Risks Group in London, said he believed the interview had been staged to portray the president in a positive light as part of a campaign to prepare for his exit from power.
"Successful transition is a top priority for the country's leadership and a public relations campaign seems to be an integral part of this process," he told the Mail & Guardian.
Peculiar chuckles
"However, a less structured interview with a more spontaneous president may have been more successful in changing public opinion than the highly controlled and sanitised interview that we actually saw."
Beyond the blandness of the exchange – and Dos Santos' peculiar chuckles as he talked about corruption and inequality – Angolans are most angry that their president claimed that there was no social instability in the country.
Asked if Angola could have an Arab Spring, Dos Santos replied: "They tried immediately after the rebellions in Tunisia and Egypt. They used social networks to communicate their message … but the truth is, it did not take hold … because there are positive actions to improve citizens' conditions, to work for the common good. The majority of the population understands that there is this willingness … Why create disruption?"
The president said the organisers were "generally young people with certain frustrations, who were unsuccessful during their schooling and academic training" and who "were unable to integrate themselves properly in the world of work".
Raul Lindo, who was injured in a string of clashes with riot police in Luanda last month, blasted back: "It's President José Eduardo dos Santos who is frustrated, not us."
Justino Pinto de Andrade, the president of small opposition group Bloco Democratico, whose secretary general Filomeno Veira Lopes was injured on his way to attend an anti-government demonstration last year, described the interview as a "whitewash" and a "media set-up".
He said that the peace that Dos Santos talked about was only a military peace, while the reality was that opposition groups like his were subject to "permanent tension" and "extreme intolerance".
"Contrary to what Dos Santos said, Angola has no development at all. The country's economic growth has not been reflected in society, as the gap between rich and poor has in fact increased," De Andrade told Portuguese news agency Lusa.
Elusiveness
And the respected economist, who was once a member of Dos Santos' ruling MPLA, said: "Economically, Angola is hostage to the mono-production of oil to the detriment of desired diversification, waste in public works is rife, and there is no production sustainability chain."
Dos Santos has ruled Angola since September 1979, when he took over after the sudden death of the country's liberation president, Antonio Agostinho Neto. He is Africa's second-longest serving leader, one month behind Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang.
But unlike South Africa's Jacob Zuma, who plays on his "everyman" image and who makes more public appearances and speeches than he appears to have time to prepare for, Dos Santos's trademark is his elusiveness, or as his critics would say, his aloofness.
There are no press conferences, tweets or emailed statements coming from Angola's pink presidential palace, and his spokespeople usually decline to comment, most often not even picking up the phone.
Dos Santos is seldom seen in public, though he remains omnipresent, his face beaming down from giant billboards next to long traffic jams caused by armed soldiers closing roads to allow him to move amid blue-light convoys.
The fact that so few people really know what he is thinking or planning is seen as key to the length and success of his tenure that has never been internally challenged by members of the MPLA.
Angolan politics is largely a game of second-guessing and conspiracy theories, of strategic, military and family alliances, over which Dos Santos rules absolutely via a carefully crafted web of patronage and influence.
Ministerial reshuffles come out of the blue, with loyal and capable cadres tossed aside simply because they can be, it often seems. And promotion and reward, at times, appears to be equally arbitrary.
People tuned in to the interview to learn more about the man who has run their country for more than three decades.
Few will feel that they have learned anything new about him or his politics, except for his wish to be remembered as a "good patriot". That, however, will be for future generations to decide.