CUBA:
Raúl Castro’s Surprising
No. 2
By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA (IPS) -
Closely following in the
footsteps of his brother
Fidel, Cuba’s new
president, Raúl Castro,
defied expectations and
took many by surprise by
selecting José Ramón
Machado, a member of the
Communist Party old
guard, as first vice
president.
Seen as one of the
foremost representatives
of the country’s
hard-line communists,
Machado is not only a
symbol of the continuing
grip on power held by
the now elderly leaders
of the 1959 revolution,
but also has a
reputation for
efficiency -- a quality
that the new president
is apparently seeking
among his closest
associates.
"He is demanding, very
demanding! To be honest
with you, sometimes I
have personally told him
that he does not always
use the best methods in
his demandingness," said
Castro, explaining his
decision to the 597
members of the National
Assembly (parliament)
who met Sunday in their
first session.
Whatever his skills as
an organiser, there are
more than a few former
Communist youth leaders
who now hold key posts
in the government or the
Communist Party and who
have not forgotten the
critical stance he took
in the early 1990s when
the Young Communist
League attempted to
reach out to the younger
generations in a more
dynamic, modern fashion.
Highlighting Machado’s
merits, the new
president said he had
been Cuba’s "best public
health minister," a
position he held from
1960 to 1967, that he
took on a number of
strategic tasks within
the Communist Party, and
that he was the head of
the party in the western
province of Matanzas at
the time of the
government drive for a
10 million ton sugar
harvest in 1970.
"Matanzas was the only
province that met its
target, of one million
tons of sugar," said
Castro, recalling one of
the toughest years of
the Cuban revolution,
when after months of
hard work, a
concentration of
resources in the sugar
industry, and the
putting on hold of other
sectors of the economy,
the country failed to
fulfil what was more of
a political than an
economic goal.
Unanimously elected by
the National Assembly,
the 77-year-old Machado,
a medical doctor by
profession, will be the
first vice president of
the Council of State and
the Council of Ministers
-- a formula that put
paid to recent
speculation that current
vice president Carlos
Lage would hold one of
these two key posts.
The decision to keep
both positions in the
hands of the same person
was explained by the new
president in a speech
broadcast to the nation
Sunday night.
Alluding to Washington’s
hostility towards Cuba,
as manifested by the
nearly half-century U.S.
trade embargo, Castro
said a decision had been
reached to leave both
positions in the hands
of one of the top
leaders of the
revolution in order to
be able to act swiftly
"in any eventuality."
"Incredible. On the
streets, people were
even saying that Raúl
would only be the head
of the party and the
army, and that Lage
would be the new
president," Alma Gómez,
a 57-year-old retired
police officer, who now
makes a living by means
of private enterprise,
told IPS. "I thought it
was unlikely, but no one
imagined what would
really happen."
Considered one of the
driving forces behind
the economic reforms of
the 1990s, the
56-year-old Lage is the
only representative of
the so-called
"intermediate
generation" among the
five vice presidents of
the new Council of State
elected by the National
Assembly.
His ascent is seen as a
symbol of the need to
recognise the younger
generations, and as
evidence of the
willingness of the
country’s leaders to
adopt changes that,
according to analysts,
must be undertaken in
order to guarantee the
stability of the Cuban
system.
"The government must
tackle the problems
raised by society over
the past year" in a
series of public
debates, said an analyst
who preferred not to be
named. "Machado’s
presence alongside Raúl
could be a way of saying
that the changes needed
to sustain the
revolutionary process
are going to be taken by
the same generation that
carried out the
revolution," he remarked
to IPS.
While some dissidents
and sectors of the exile
community say the Raúl
Castro-Machado team will
opt for "more of the
same" or strong-arm
tactics, dissident
economist Oscar Espinosa
Chepe said he feels "a
certain cautious
optimism with regard to
the gradual application
of some economic
reforms."
"I don’t think Machado
will be an obstacle for
the economic reforms.
Although some people see
him as conservative, I
think he is an
intelligent man who will
understand that the
country needs changes,"
Espinosa Chepe, one of
the 75 dissidents handed
harsh prison sentences
in 2003, who was
released on parole for
health reasons, told IPS.
But the spokesman for
the moderate dissident
coalition Arco
Progresista, Manuel
Cuesta Morúa, said on
the other hand that
"Machado’s election is a
symbol of the concession
made to the conservative
faction in the country."
"Machado symbolises that
conservative sector and
its position at the head
of the process of
reforms, which it is
controlling. After
Fidel, it was obvious
that the old guard was
going to keep its grip
on power. This is a
government hand-made by
Fidel Castro, who will
continue to have a
decisive influence on
the direction taken by
the country," he
commented to IPS.
Eighteen months after
temporarily yielding
power to his younger
brother Raúl for health
reasons, the 81-year-old
Fidel Castro announced
last Tuesday that he was
retiring as the
country’s leader.
One of the first steps
taken by the National
Assembly on Sunday was
to unanimously approve
Raúl Castro’s proposal
that Fidel continue to
be consulted on matters
of great importance,
such as defence, foreign
policy and development.
Although he did not
actually use the word
"change," Raúl Castro
did refer to the need to
deal with pressing
problems faced by Cuban
society, said some
unnecessary regulations
would soon begin to be
eliminated, and called
for respect for the
right to express
criticism -- as long as
it is expressed within
the framework of the
law.
"In five years, this
will be a better Cuba, a
more socialist Cuba,"
said Transportation
Minister Jorge Luis
Sierra, representative
of a younger generation
closely identified with
Lage.
"This is not the first
time that Cuba has
carried out a profound
rectification," Sierra
said in a conversation
with IPS and journalists
representing two other
international media
outlets. The changes and
measures will be
introduced in accordance
with the country’s
needs, he added.
"The Cuba of today is
not like the Cuba of
years past…the changes
that Cubans need will be
made, in the Cuban way,"
said the minister.
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