Havana – Cuba is poised to enter the post-Castro era with Raul Castro due to step down as head of the ruling Communist Party at its congress this week, which will also address the island’s severe economic crisis, pandemic response and signs of growing dissent.
Castro, 89, and his late older brother Fidel have successively ruled Cuba ever since leading a 1959 revolution that toppled a United States-backed dictator and installed a Communist-run country on the doorstep of the United States.
The congress, which takes place every five years, is the Communist party’s most important meeting electing party leadership and setting policy guidelines. Raul Castro said at the 2016 congress it would be the last one led by the so-called “historic generation” of revolutionary veterans.
The new generation of younger leaders is not expected to make sweeping changes to Cuba’s one-party, socialist model. But it will be under pressure to pursue further market-style reforms to the long-ailing, centrally planned economy, Cuban analysts said.
The April 16-19 congress comes as Cubans battle worsening widespread shortages of basic goods, including food and medicine, after a liquidity crisis was exacerbated by a tightening of decades-old U.S. sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic.
Hints on the reform path to come could be delivered at the meeting, the analysts said. But many Cubans say they are not hopeful much will change any time soon. Guidelines around the first moves to open the economy, announced in 2011, have still only been 70% implemented, according to the party.
“A lot of my generation feel frustrated with the pace of change,” said Jorge Quintana, 35, a Havana resident standing in an hours-long queue for detergent. “Many have emigrated looking for a new path.”
Castro is expected to hand over the leadership of the Communist Party, the most powerful position in the island nation of 11 million, to protege Miguel Diaz-Canel, 60, who in 2018 already inherited the presidency.
Diaz-Canel is under pressure to deliver results to retain support because he does not have the moral legitimacy of the historic generation, the analysts said.
Social reforms over the past decade, in particular the expansion of Internet access, have strengthened Cuban civil society. Small protests have cropped up nationwide lately despite tight control by authorities of public spaces. (Reuters)
