MIAMI — Analysts of the secretive Cuban power structure see signs of modest political and economic change emerging on the island in the 18 months since an ailing Fidel Castro temporarily ceded power to his brother Raul and retreated to pen his memoirs.
Raul Castro has urged young Cubans to expose the government’s shortcomings in providing adequate food, transportation and housing.
The idea of giving idle land to farmers has been floated for the first time since private estates were nationalized in the 1960s.
Havana authorities also have proposed compensating Cuban employees of foreign companies in hard currency, in a land where Fidel Castro has long fought the dollar’s encroachment because of the class division it inflicts between those who have convertible money and those who don’t.
But the most radical transition might come as soon as this spring, with Castro, 81, hinting that he might relinquish the Cuban presidency after 49 years as supreme leader of the Marxist-Leninist state he created.
In a letter read on state-run television in late December, Castro caused a stir by saying he wouldn’t “cling to positions” or “obstruct the path of younger people” aspiring to lead Cuba.
He didn’t demur when his name was again included on the slate of Communist Party candidates for the National Assembly to be rubber-stamped in an election today. And after a two-hour meeting with the Cuban leader last week, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva proclaimed Castro fit, lucid and “ready to take over his historic political role.”
But those familiar with the hierarchy predict Castro will take his seat in the National Assembly when it convenes in March but decline another five-year stint as head of state.
“I still think it’s significant that he made those comments about making way for the next generation,” said Sarah Stephens, head of the Center for Democracy in the Americas.
