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Cuba looks past Raúl for
next leader
By Marc Frank in Havana.
The Financial
Times, January 23, 2007.
Fidel Castro may be knocking at death's
door after three failed operations, as reported
by the Spanish paper El País, or
he may be "slowly recovering",
as a Spanish doctor who examined him in
December insists, but the line in Cuba remains
"stay the course", even as a change
of leadership is being prepared.
"Continuity" is the word José
Luis Rodríguez, the economy and planning
minister, emphasises when asked about economic
policy. "Continuity" is the word
Carlos Lage, the vice-president, insists
on when referring to the political situation.
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More often than not, official propaganda
photographs now show the president and his
brother Raúl - standing in for him
for the past six months - together, or the
two of them leading bearded rebels in the
mountains.
"Viva Fidel, Viva Raúl"
proclaim the posters in shop windows, as
if to say nothing really has changed. A
recent cartoon on the front page of the
usually humourless Cuban Communist party
daily, Granma, showed a pyjama-clad arm
and hand holding a telephone, from which
a voice said, "At your orders, Comandante",
a lampoon difficult to imagine if Mr Castro's
health were declining further.
"El Comandante has had no new setbacks
since the Spanish doctor visited and in
fact he is gradually improving,"
an official who has proved accurate on Mr
Castro's general condition in the past said,
asking not to be identified.
Western governments agree the secrecy around
Mr Castro's health does not really matter
any more, as a remarkably smooth transfer
of daily government to the younger Castro
has already taken place amid a public calm
just as remarkable.
Raúl Castro has consolidated his
power. In a series of year-end public appearances
he demanded more accountability and fewer
excuses from functionaries and focused a
parliament discussion on the main complaints
of the public - housing, transport, food
and low state salaries - without once lambasting
"the new rich" or other scapegoats
for the state's inefficiency, as his brother
almost certainly would have.
"Thanks largely to Venezuela and China,
Cuban macro-economics is, for the most part,
doing much better. At the same time there
is a sense of urgency to focus on some of
the most demanding issues affecting the
daily lives of people that was not there
before, when only big projects would receive
the proper attention," says Domingo
Amuchastegui, a former Cuban intelligence
officer who defected in the early 1990s
and now teaches in Florida. "But Raúl
is 75," says Mr Amuchastegui.
"The real question is who comes next."
The Communist party is preparing a congress
for later this year or early in 2008, party
insiders report. Elections for a new national
assembly, which in turn picks a Council
of State that names the president and first
vice-president, are scheduled for 2008.
Both events should burn off some of the
fog over Cuba's immediate future. The party
congress is the most important political
event in a country where all other parties
are banned and where the constitution says
it guides policy. It elects a new political
bureau, which in turn names a first and
second secretary for at least the following
five years.
The vast majority of party, government
and military leaders are in their 40s and
50s. No one is certain whether a new "strongman"
or a more collective leadership will emerge,
or if a power struggle ensues for leadership
of Cuba's younger generations born and bread
under Fidel, let alone what new policies
will develop.
But just in case the 70 per cent of Cubans
born after the revolution forget their origins,
these days party members are studying a
tract on the most distinguishing traits
of Fidel Castro.
Copyright
The Financial Times Limited 2007
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