Agostinho Neto was born in the village of Kaxicane, in the Icolo e Bengo region, around 60 kilometres from Luanda. His father was a pastor and teacher in the Methodist Church and his mother was also a teacher. After graduating from high school in Luanda, he worked in the health services and quickly became a prominent figure in the nationalist cultural movement which, during the 1940s, experienced a phase of vigorous expansion in Angola.

José Eduardo dos Santos was born on 28 August 1942 to Eduardo Avelino dos Santos and Jacinta José Paulino, both deceased. He attended primary school in Luanda, where he did his secondary education at Liceu Salvador Correia, at the time the main secondary school in the country. He began his political activity by joining clandestine groups set up in the capital's suburban neighbourhoods at the end of the 1950s and joined the MPLA when it was formed in 1958. After the outbreak of the struggle against Portuguese colonial power in Luanda on 4 February 1961, José Eduardo dos Santos left Angola in November of the same year and began to coordinate the activities of the MPLA Youth in the safety of exile, an organisation of which he was one of the founders and for some time Vice-President.

Born in Lobito, Benguela province, on 5 March 1954, he is the son of Sequeira João Lourenço, a nurse from Malange, and Josefa Gonçalves Cipriano Lourenço, a seamstress from Namibe, both deceased. In February 2017, after being elected vice-president of the MPLA at Congress, he was confirmed by the Central Committee as the party's candidate for the general elections on 23 August. At the time, he was Minister of National Defence in the government. In the meantime, João Lourenço has held various important positions in the state apparatus and in the party. In his career, he held the positions of Provincial Governor and 1st Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee in Moxico and Benguela. In the former People's Assembly, João Lourenço was a deputy and in the Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) he was head of the National Political Directorate.