Raul Castro Won’t Leave Power in 2018
Vicente Morin Aguado
HAVANA TIMES — According to the comments you hear out on the street, a good share of Cubans, the majority in my understanding, are superficially repeating that current leader Raul Castro “will leave the seat of power next year.” This phrase omits details from the current Constitution in force, intentionally left out by the government’s political propaganda.
Leaving the role of President of the Councils of State and Ministries doesn’t mean leaving power in Cuba; this is because the vast majority of the population has lost interest in politics and are acting like zombies, tormented by the daily struggle to survive. People don’t pay attention to the constitutional articles that govern their fate.
Article No.5 of the Cuban constitution, a real outrage and essentially copied from the now-disappeared Soviet communist system, states:
“The Communist Party of Cuba, a follower of Martí’s ideas and of Marxism-Leninism, and the organized vanguard of the Cuban nation, is the highest leading force of society and of the state, which organizes and guides the common effort toward the goals of building socialism and progressing towards a communist society.”
This controversial article establishes that it is the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) who actually rules the country. Up until today, the current leader has still not said anything about giving up his main position, First Secretary of the PCC, and so it can be argued that he will continue at the helm of power.
His strategy seems to be to delegate tasks, which were concentrated in one person up until now, including to the second in command of the state-party dichotomy, Jose Ramon Machado Ventura. Raul Castro is 86 years old, Machado Ventura is 87. There is a popular saying that says that at this age the only thing they should be doing is sitting in rocking chairs.
Well-dressed and much younger figures will take on executive duties, among whom Miguel Diaz Canel, 57, stands out. The grandfathers aren’t up for so much hustle and bustle, but they aren’t renouncing a power that they call “historic” in Cuba, because in the words of many Cubans, “they fired the shots and earned it by overthrowing the dictator Batista.”
The often repeated decision to leave power is just another way of saying, changing some things so as to not really change anything. They aren’t even reaching the example the government has announced so many times in our country, the success of Chinese communism. In the Asian giant, at least every ten years, when leaders are replaced, the First Secretary of the Communist Party is the first one to go.
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Vicente Morin Aguado: [email protected]
I wouldn’t be surprised if Raul Castro dies in the following weeks due to his old age.
The time is comming for a new leader to consolidate power. Raul is a transitory figure at 86. When it does, there will be a thinning of the remaining old guard. Only one can lead. Such a leader in these types of regimes can not afford rivals, Fidel taught that lesson very well.
Because is a giant government run Enterprise, they breed Cuban Spies, and Soviet Cubans, that work justly for the CCP, DI, G2. They do not have any much more American cars left, everything is either Soviet Cars, or Chinese. This system has no prospective change since they only allowed one party to be in power by the Cuban Construction, is a one party system of government, like other countries that have multiple party systems.
All of the honey with none of the sting-why would they walk away? I sure as heck wouldn’t…
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and as this man is a pivotal part of everything that is Corrupt not only in Cuba but throughout the world. He will go to his grave still as leader of Cuba, and even after his death his legacy and his brothers legacy to the Cuban people will still roll on. I see no signs of any improvement for the Cuban people unless that is history repeats itself, who knows their might possibly be a young Cuban citizen growing up in Cuba right now with some real radical ideas regarding how he could change the lives of the Cuban people for the better?