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Cuba looks past Raśl for next leader
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. 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.
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