Amid post-election tensions, Angola held a funeral on Sunday for long-serving ex-leader Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who died in Spain in July but whose burial was delayed by a family request for an autopsy, Reuters reported.

Heads of state and senior ministers from around the continent, as well as the president of Angola's former colonial ruler Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, attended the funeral.

Dos Santos died in a clinic in Barcelona on July 8 at the age of 79. His funeral was taking place days after an election that appeared to have returned his MPLA party to power, but whose results have been disputed by the opposition.

Dos Santos and his family dominated Angolan politics for the 38 years that he ruled until 2017. His once Marxist party, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), in power for nearly five decades, looks certain to have won Wednesday's poll.

His rule was marked by a 27-year on-off civil war against U.S.-backed rebels from the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), who he defeated in 2002. The country also enjoyed an oil-fuelled boom, but more than half the population of more than 30 million live in poverty.

The presence of foreign VIPs enabled authorities to seek to head off possible protests over the disputed provisional results, which gave the MPLA and President Joao Lourenco a 51% majority while UNITA, now the main opposition group, got 44.5%.

The national police force said that due to the state funeral, citizens intending to organize activities should "contain themselves out of respect for the former head of state," according to a statement reported by the Lusa news agency on Saturday.

UNITA's leader, Costa Junior, has rejected the election results, and there have been sporadic protests that were quickly shut down by police.

The electoral commission has repeatedly said the process was fair and transparent.