Isaías Henrique Ngola Samakuva (born July 8, 1946) is an Angolan politician who has been the President of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) since 2003.
Born in Kunji, Bié Province, Samakuva joined UNITA in 1974. He was an official UNITA ambassador in Europe from 1989 to 1994 and again from 1998 to 2002. After UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi and his immediate successor António Dembo died from injuries sustained in a February 2002 firefight with Angolan government troops, Samakuva was elected as President of UNITA, which had transformed itself into a peaceful opposition party, in 2003.
Samakuva was the first candidate on UNITA's national list in the September 2008 parliamentary election. He was elected to a seat in the National Assembly in that election, but UNITA performed poorly, winning only 16 out of 220 seats.[1] Despite the party's objections to problems in the electoral process, Samakuva announced on September 8, 2008 that UNITA accepted the election results.[2] The UNITA Permanent Committee subsequently met to consider the outcome of the election and Samakuva's leadership, and on September 19, 2008, it said in a statement that it "reaffirm[ed] its confidence" in Samakuva, blaming the party's poor showing primarily on abuses by the governing Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).[3]