Cuba Has New Health Minister
HAVANA TIMES, July 23 — Cuban Public Health Minister Jose Ramon Balaguer has been replaced by First Vice-minister Roberto Morales,43, revealed official sources on Friday, reported IPS. No reason was given for Balaguer’s “liberation”, a term frequently used to refer to dismissed officials.
Balaguer, 78, is part of the generation of historic figures from the Cuban revolution and will return to work at the Central Committee of the Communist Party, noted Granma newspaper.
The difference between (self-proclaimed) socialist regimes and capitalist ones is that, capitalist regimes being based wholly on narrow self-interest, it is very, very easy to replace political operatives who have outlived their usefulness to the behind-the-scene oligarchs. Not so with stalinists, and other nationalist regimes ‘on the outs’ with imperialism: where any change at the top just provides one more opportunity for imperialist intrigue against the ‘renegade’ government. Thus the obvious reluctance to change even very old — but trustworthy — operatives for relatively unknown ones. However, change these regimes must, regardless. Or the imperialists win anyway, simply by outliving them.