The party has ruled Angola since the country's independence from Portugal in , being the de facto government throughout the civil war and continuing to rule afterwards. The party formerly had links to European and Soviet communist parties , but today is a full-member of the Socialist International grouping of social democratic parties. In the early s, the MPLA's guerrilla activities were reduced, due to the fierce counter-insurgency campaigns of the Portuguese military.
The Carnation Revolution in Lisbon , Portugal in established a military government. It promptly ceased anti-independence fighting in Angola and agreed to transfer power to a coalition of three pro-independence Angolan movements. The coalition quickly broke down and the newly independent Angola broke into a state of civil war. Agostinho Neto became the first president upon independence. The United States strongly aided the two groups. It added Partido do Trabalho Labour Party to its name.
After Nito Alves 's attempted coup in , Neto ordered the killing of suspected followers and sympathisers of "orthodox communism" inside and outside the party. After the violent internal conflict called Fractionism , the MPLA declared that it would follow the socialist, not the communist, model. But it did maintain close ties with the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc, establishing socialist economic policies and a one-party state [ citation needed ].
On its third congress in December , it declared social democracy to be its official ideology. The MPLA emerged victorious in Angola's general election, but eight opposition parties rejected the election as rigged. As a consequence, hostilities erupted in the city, and immediately spread to other parts of the country. The civil war resumed. The two parties agreed to a ceasefire, and a plan was laid out for UNITA to demobilize and become a political party. More than , civilians were killed during the civil war.
The MPLA government of Angola has been accused of human rights violations such as arbitrary arrest and detention and torture [ 37 ] by international organisations, including Amnesty International [ 38 ] and Human Rights Watch.
