June 22 2000 at 04:31PM. Independent Online
Havana - President Fidel Castro said he is not grooming any successor and ruled out multi-party politics after he leaves office, in an interview with a former Unesco chief provided on Thursday to local and foreign media.
"I am well aware that man is mortal," Castro told Federico Mayor, former director of the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.
"I haven't inherited any office and I'm not a king, so I do not need to groom a successor nor prepare any transition."
"We've been in transition from one social system to another for more than 40 years. It's not about replacing one man with another," Castro told Mayor.
Castro, 73, was asked whether he wanted to appoint a successor to lessen the shock of his eventual departure on the Cuban people.
"There will be no shock," Castro said, "nor will there be a need for any transition."
Castro said his people "will never accept political conditions from the European Union and less still from the United States", adding that neither will there be "an opening" to multi-party politics in Cuba after he leaves.
"When a real revolution takes root and a crop of ideas and awareness bears fruit, no man, regardless of his contribution, is indispensable," he added.
The 28-page interview, to be included in a book Mayor plans to publish later this year, was provided to Cuba's official daily, Granma, and to the foreign press, with the consent of the interviewer. - Sapa-AFP
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