This article argues that Angola’s new presidentialist regime, enshrined in the 2010 Constitution, its not an innovation per se but instead the outcome of an old political ambition of the MPLA elite. We will demonstrate that these new presidential features were already de facto in place before 2010, although without any constitutional update, and it was only due to Luanda’s Government legalist behaviour, the need to display working institutional structures to internationally legitimize the II Republic, downplay the II Civil War significance and avoid international ostracism that the new constitution was only approved in 2010. This article will firstly follow an historical descriptive analysis of Angola’s constitutional evolution to conclude with a comparative analysis inserted in mainstream political science literature on semi-presidentialism.

Keywords: Angola, semi-presidentialism, African constitutional design