Raul Castro said on Friday he was resigning as head of Cuba’s Communist Party and ending an era of leadership that began with his brother Fidel and the country’s revolution in 1959. The 89-year-old Castro made the announcement in a speech during the opening of the Eighth Congress of the ruling party, the only one allowed on the island.
He said he was retiring with the feeling that he had “fulfilled his mission and confident in the future of the fatherland”.
“Nothing, nothing, nothing forces me to make this decision,” Castro said in his speech to the closed Congress, part of which was broadcast on state television. “As long as I live, I will be ready with my foot in the stirrup to defend the homeland, the revolution and socialism with more power than ever.”
Castro did not say who he would endorse as his successor as first secretary of the Communist Party. But he had earlier indicated that he preferred the control of 60-year-old Miguel Díaz-Canel, who succeeded him as president in 2018 and is the standard-bearer of a younger generation of loyalists who campaigned for an economic opening without To touch Cuba’s one party. system.
In the photos released by the official Cuban news agency, Castro, dressed in an olive green uniform, entered the complex with Díaz-Canel by his side.
Castro’s retirement means that for the first time in more than six decades, the Cubans do not have a Castro who will formally lead their affairs. Many expected the change.
“One has to step aside for the young people,” said the 64-year-old retired Juana Busutil, for whom Castro “will remain the leader.”
The transition comes at a difficult time for Cuba, and many on the island are worried about what lies ahead.
The coronavirus pandemic, painful financial reforms and restrictions imposed by the Trump administration have hurt the economy, which shrank by 11% last year due to a collapse in tourism and money. Long food lines and shortages echoed the ‘special period’ that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
Dissatisfaction is fueled by the proliferation of the internet and growing inequality. Many of the debates within Cuba are focused on the pace of reform, and many complain that the so-called ‘historical generation’ represented by Castro was too slow to open up the economy.
In January, Díaz-Canel finally pulled the trigger on a plan approved two congresses ago to unify the island’s dual currency system, leading to fears of inflation. He also opened the door to a wider range of private enterprises – a category that has long been banned or strictly restricted – allowing Cubans to legally run many self-employed businesses from their homes.
Congress is expected to focus this year on unfinished reforms to revamp state-owned enterprises, attract foreign investment and provide more legal protection to private businesses.
The Communist Party consists of 700,000 activists and has in Cuba’s constitution the task of governing the affairs of the nation and society.
Fidel Castro, who led the revolution that overthrew dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959, became the party’s formal leader in 1965, about four years after he officially adopted socialism.
He quickly took the old party under his control and was the country’s undisputed leader until he fell ill in 2006. In 2008, he handed over the presidency to his younger brother Raul, who fought with him during the revolution.
Raul succeeds him as head of the party in 2011. Fidel Castro passed away in 2016.
For most of his life, Raul played his brother Fidel in the second string – first as a guerrilla commander, later as a senior figure in their socialist government. But over the past decade, it has been Raul who has been the face of communist Cuba and its defiance of American efforts to oust its socialist system.
Raul, the fourth of seven children of a Spanish immigrant in eastern Cuba, joined his charismatic older brother in 1953 in a near-suicide attack on the Moncada military barracks in the eastern city of Santiago, and survived the repression that followed. by the forces of Batista.
He led a large front in the ensuing guerrilla war led by Fidel who overthrew Batista and later served as head of the armed forces. For many years he was considered a more orthodox communist than his brother.
But it was Raul who reached agreements with US President Barack Obama in 2014, creating the most comprehensive US opening to Cuba since the early 1960s – which created an increase in contacts with the United States under Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, is largely reversed.
While Raul Castro is now stepping up as party leader amid change and challenges, some say the island needs continuity from now on.
“The process has a continuity and I think Díaz-Canel should be there now,” said 58-year-old manager Miguel Rodríguez.