Raul Castro retires as Cuban president, outlines future
HAVANA (AP) — Raul Castro stepped down as president of Cuba on Thursday, handing power to a 57-year-old successor he said would hold power until 2031, a plan that would place the state the Castro brothers founded and ruled for six decades in the hands of a Communist Party official who remains little known to most people on the island.
Castro’s 90-minute valedictory speech offered his first clear vision for the nation’s future power structure under new President Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez. Castro said he foresees the white-haired electronics engineer serving two five-year terms as leader of the Cuban government, and taking the helm of the Communist Party, the country’s ultimate authority, when Castro leaves the powerful position in 2021.
“From that point on, I will be just another soldier defending this revolution,” Castro said. The 86-yearold general broke frequently from his prepared remarks to joke and banter with officials on the dais in the National Assembly, saying he looked forward to having more time to travel the country. In his own half-hour speech to the nation, Diaz-Canel pledged to preserve Cuba’s communist system while gradually reforming the economy and making the government more responsive to the people.
“There’s no space here for a transition that ignores or destroys the legacy of so many years of struggle,” Diaz-Canel said. “For us, it’s totally clear that only the Communist Party of Cuba, the guiding force of society and the state, guarantees the unity of the nation of Cuba.”
He said he would work to implement a long-term plan laid out by the National Assembly and Communist Party to permit moderate growth of private enterprises like restaurants and taxis, while leaving the economy’s most important sectors — energy, mining, telecommunications, medical services and rum- and cigar-production — in the hands of the state.
“The people have given this assembly the mandate to provide continuity to the Cuban Revolution during a crucial, historic moment that will be defined by all that we achieve in the advance of the modernization of our social and economic model,” Diaz-Canel said.
Cubans said they expected their new president to deliver improvements to the island’s economy, which remains stagnant, dominated by inefficient state-run enterprises that are unable to provide salaries high enough to cover basic needs. The average monthly pay for state workers is roughly $30 a month, forcing many to steal from their workplaces and depend on remittances from relatives abroad.
“I hope that Diaz-Canel brings prosperity,” said Richard Perez, a souvenir salesman in Old Havana. “I want to see changes, above all economic changes allowing people to have their own businesses, without the state in charge of so many things.” But in Miami, Cuban-Americans said they didn’t expect much from Diaz-Canel.
Sixty-five-year-old Lourdes Diaz, who left Cuba as a child in 1955 before Fidel Castro, said life on the island will be “exactly” the same under the new president. Julio Cesar Alfonso, president of Solidarity Without Borders, called the change of leadership a “farce.”