But as activists have organized and hatched plans online, Angola's military police have been quick to thwart any sign of demonstrations by prompt arrests of activists and journalists involved in talking of a impending revolution.

Three journalists, a rapper known for inflammatory lyrics against the current president and 12 others were arrested in an overnight raid in early March. The protests planned for March 7 in Luanda's May 1 Square were promptly postponed.

A facebook page called "The Angolan People's Revolution" had called on Angolans to march at midnight with posters "demanding the departure of Ze Du (Dos Santos' nickname), his ministers and his corrupt friends."

Many dismissed the anonymous call to protest as a charade.

Along with Nigeria, Angola is the continent's largest producer of crude oil but the majority of its 18 million people continue living beneath the poverty line. Moreover, life expectancy and infant mortality are among the worse ranked in the world, topping of lower socio-economic conditions which journalists say is rapidly breeding discontent. Angola also ranked 44 out of 48 sub-Saharan countries, as a result of poor participation and human rights and human development in the Ibrahim Index of African governance.

At the same time, the 2008 elections saw more than 80 per cent of the electorate voted in the new presidential party into office in the first elections since the end of its 27-year civil war in 2002.

The new constitution, confirmed in 2010 has cultivated an authoritarian character to the political system that has created new concerns. Selecting the president and vice president will now be determined by the party that performs the strongest in parliamentary elections.

Experts say that Angola faces similar economic and social issues that catalysed the revolutions in North Africa, but was unlikely to spawn that scope and extent of protests experienced up north, not so soon after the civil war ended.