Cuban Parliament to Have New President
HAVANA TIMES — After 20 years in office as the president of the National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada will step down from that post next year when the new legislature after February’s elections.
According to the Cubaencuentro website, the talk in government circles is that Alarcon will become an adviser to President Raul Castro and will be responsible on a full-time basis for the case of the “Cuban Five prisoners of the Empire.”
Discussion of a possible replacement for Alarcon began circulating in unofficially last March following the arrest of both his right-hand lieutenant Miguel Alvarez Sanchez (a former Cuban intelligence officer) and that official’s wife, Mercedes Arce (an academic who is also a former intelligence officer).
The current vice president of the parliament, Ana Maria Mari Machado, could fill the vacated post, however, the Cubaencuentro article doesn’t rule out Council of Ministers Vice President Miguel Diaz Canel or Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, who are both members of the Politburo.
“Alarcon will become an adviser to President Raul Castro and will be responsible on a full-time basis for the case of the “Cuban Five prisoners of the Empire.”
Does the octogenarian clique have any clue as to how ridiculous they make themselves with that Hardy Boys sounding sloganeering? So a fossil is retiring, to be replaced by some slightly younger fossil, chosen by a few remaining ancient fossils. Wouldn’t it be nice if the Cuban people ever get a say in all this?
Yet another former Fidel confidante stepping down? At 75 years of age, anywhere else in the world, even China, this would not seem unusual. By Cuban standards, he still has another good 10 years though. Like several others before him from that “historical” generation, he will become an advisor to Raul Castro. What shame is there in saying he wants to retire and spend more time with his family? Full-time work for the five Cuban spies? After nearly 15 years in prison, now Cuba decides to dedicate someone full-time? Just what those guys need, another tired old man in Cuba being interviewed by Cuban TV. That should do the trick.