A ‘Castro’ with a crewcut
After brothers Fidel and Raúl, Cuba will be led by a jeans-wearing Beatles fan, but one who is something of a mystery to much of the world
When the Soviet Union collapsed, plunging Cuba into chaos, Miguel Díaz-Canel got on his bike. While other Communist Party cadres still commuted in their Ladas, Díaz-Canel, the highest-ranking politician in his hometown of Villa Clara, cycled alongside the ordinary people, who were forced through poverty to travel by foot, horse or bicycle. It was a gesture that did his career no harm. It also meant he could arrive at factories unannounced, to make sure they weren’t hoarding. Fast forward 20 years and Cuba is again sailing in uncertain waters, with a stridently anti-Cuban US president and its staunchest economic supporter, Venezuela, spluttering. But this time Díaz-Canel will not be riding a bicycle; he’ll be sitting tall in a presidential motorcade. This week President Raúl Castro, 86, began the process of stepping down after a decade in power. On Thursday afternoon he handed over to Díaz-Canel, a man not even born when the revolution began. A jeans-wearing, self-professed Beatles fan who was giddy with excitement to tour the preparations for Cuba’s first major rock gig — The Rolling Stones performed in March 2016 — Díaz-Canel is distinguished from many of the senior Communist Party officials by his comparative youth and vigour. Indeed, while many in the Communist Party official photo are sitting in wheelchairs with blankets over their knees, looking more like retirement-home inhabitants than political masterminds, DíazCanel turned a sprightly 58 the day after he became president. He will not, strictly speaking, be the first non-Castro to rule Cuba since the revolution — Manuel Urrutia was president for the first six months of the revolution, and Osvaldo Dorticos then ruled for 17 years, until 1976. But even when someone else was nominally ruling, Fidel Castro was always known to be effectively in charge. And his appointment — which was announced on Wednesday and confirmed on Thursday — is undoubtedly a huge moment in the history of the island. “This is important symbolically because it’s the passing of the baton from the historic figures led by the Castros to the next generation,” said Ted Piccone, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “The big caveat is that it will be gradual change because Raúl will still be secretary of the Communist Party,” said Piccone. Indeed, anyone expecting a dramatic shift in Cuba’s policies will be disappointed. “We should keep our expectations conservative,” said Ricardo Barrios, Latin American expert at the Washington-based think tank Inter-American Dialogue. “At first, he has to simply deal with the difficult period of transition. He’s the first from the post-revolution generation, and he needs to prove himself to the party apparatus.” Alana Tummino, head of the Americas Society, agreed, and said he was hampered by not having the “street cred” of being a Castro. “He’ll need to work to build his legitimacy,” she said. “But this will not be a leader coming in to enact a new agenda. There’s no sea change expected.” Within the tightly controlled nation of 11 million, relatively little is known of Díaz-Canel’s own political beliefs. He is frequently described as “enigmatic” — and it’s not just the West that is struggling to suss him out. Even diplomats from China, one of Cuba’s closest allies, are unsure of where he stands, said Barrios. “He’s been prepared for this day for years now,” said Manuel Barcia Paz, a Cuban academic and historian at the University of Leeds. He pointed out that previous potential successors to the Castros have come and gone. In the early ’90s Roberto Robaina, the then-foreign minister, seemed destined for success but he was kicked out of the Communist Party in disgrace, amid murky accusations of “disloyalty” and “self-promotion”. In 2009 another two rising stars tipped for the presidency, Felipe Pérez Roque and Carlos Lage, were forced out, with Fidel accusing them publicly of having been seduced by the “honey of power” into “unworthy roles”. “He’s the last of a long line of dolphins and probably the only one to make it all the way,” said Barcia. Of his policies, Barcia said he expected to see “change within the existing parameters”. “Some of his ideas are definitely very positive, for example expanding the provision of English language, and focusing on improving public health. But I am not sure to what extent he will be able to implement his own ideas.” Díaz-Canel is, however, known to be a supporter of wider internet access and a more vibrant media. Only around 5% of Cuban homes have access to the internet, according to the UN, and Díaz-Canel says that trying to stop the internet’s spread is futile. “Prohibiting it would be an almost impossible delusion,” he said after becoming first vice-president in February 2013. The government soon after extended Wi-Fi signals to public places. He says Cuba’s state-run media needs to change, calling for an end to secrecy, urging more “polemical” coverage of news and telling the Communist Party it should allow more constructive criticism. “Society is demanding more,” he said. Yet after that, in August 2017, a video from February of that year surfaced in which Díaz-Canel expressed stridently conservative views at a private meeting of the party, railing against US plots and arguing that the process of normalisation of relations initiated by president Barack Obama was just a different way of attempting “the destruction of the revolution”. Many saw the leaking of the video as a deliberate ploy to reassure hardliners. They probably need not worry: little in Díaz-Canel’s background suggests that he will rock Raúl’s boat. He studied electronic engineering and taught for a while in Villa Clara, where he was first head of the youth wing of the Communist Party, and then first secretary of the whole regional organisation. After nine years as leader in Villa Clara, Díaz-Canel took the same job, as first secretary, in Holguin province in 2003. He was also promoted to the 14-member politburo, the highest leadership of the Communist Party. In Holguin, he lacked the hometown advantage but did well enough to be summoned to Havana in 2009 to serve as minister for higher education. Then on February 24 2013, the National Assembly promoted him to first vice-president, a significant generational shift. A father of two children from his first marriage, while in Holguin he met his second wife, Liz Cuesta Peraza, who at the time was the director of the provincial literary institute. She is now a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Culture and, in another change for Cuba, seems set to play an active role as first lady. Fidel’s multitude of lovers and children were strictly off limits for the public — the mother of five of his children, Dalia Soto del Valle, was almost never seen until Fidel retired through illness in 2006. Raúl’s wife Vilma Espin, one of the first women in Cuba to obtain a university degree, in chemical engineering, and who fought alongside the Castro brothers in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra, was a revered figure in Cuba but died in 2007, aged 77. By contrast, Cuesta was photographed in March voting in Villa Clara alongside her husband — although state media made no reference to her. And she has accompanied him to North Korea, in 2015, to meet Kim Jong-un, and in June 2016 was hosted by the wife of Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister. Díaz-Canel’s principal challenges will be jump-starting the economy, without causing significant shock to the status quo, and winning over the army, which plays such a significant role in Cuban political life. Raúl Castro was a military man through-and-through, not given — unlike his brother — to rousing rhetoric, but adored by his troops. Díaz-Canel, by contrast, has only a few years of compulsory military service under his belt. “Díaz-Canel, as far as we know, has no links with the army and he definitely lacks the halo of immortality that Fidel and Raúl have,” said Barcia Paz. As president under the Cuban constitution he will also be head of all “armed institutions” and preside over the national defence council. But, Barrios noted, “even with the formal title, there is reason to doubt Díaz-Canel would have the significant influence over the military, given his civilian background”. Furthermore, although Castro is stepping down from the presidency, he will remain first secretary of the Communist Party until 2021 — a significant position of power. As he draws nearer to his 90th birthday, however, and having never shown much relish for the trappings of power, Raúl Castro is expected to take a low-profile role — more Deng Xiaoping than Vladimir Putin. —
He’ll need to build his legitimacy . . . but this will not be a leader coming to enact a new agenda Alana Tummino
He definitely lacks the halo of immortality that Fidel and Raúl have Manuel Barcia Paz