Non-Subscriber Extract
Introducing Raul Castro
21 February 2008
Raul Castro has held most of the powers of the Cuban presidency since Fidel Castro announced his temporary retirement to undergo intestinal surgery in July 2006. The 76-year-old Raul has already consolidated his power and Fidel's announcement of permanent retirement on 19 February will therefore have relatively little immediate impact on day-to-day administration. Nonetheless, Fidel's formal retirement is highly significant in that it removes both a powerful symbolic presence and a compulsively meddling egotist from the Cuban political scene.
Raul is widely perceived as an uncharismatic technocrat about whom relatively little is known. Yet an analysis of his career as the world's longest serving minister of defence provides some useful indications of likely developments under his presidency.
His track record suggests he will be not just a guardian of the political status quo but also a promising leader of the first, cautious stages of the post-Fidel transition, especially within the armed forces and the economy. In his public speeches since 2006, he has repeatedly hinted at "structural and conceptual changes" to the economy, prompting speculation that Cuba is on the cusp of embracing a mixed communist system on the Chinese model, with party control maintained while the economy is partially liberalised.
Raul will be an important stabilising presence in the short term. His underlying objective was and remains essentially conservative - to secure the future of the one-party socialist system, with central economic planning and a strong military at its heart. Any reforms will therefore be motivated more by a pragmatic desire to contain popular dissent than any genuine desire to democratise politics or liberalise the economy.
FORECAST |
|
One of Raul's key objectives is to decouple the communist regime from Fidel's cult of personality. Raul will seek publicly to promote younger figures within the government and accelerate the transition to the next generation of communist leaders. Genuine democracy is not on the agenda for now. |