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Raul Castro team no ticket for change in Cuba
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Raul Castro team no ticket for change in Cuba
Cuban President Raul Castro picked a team of close political and military allies as he succeeded his brother on the day before, consolidating his power and dashing hopes of rapid change in the communist state.
Raul Castro and his new leadership group, elected by the rubber-stamp National Assembly, are mostly elderly men expected to move slowly as they try to boost the island's struggling economy while remaining loyal to the ideals of long-time leader Fidel Castro, who retired last week.
The man most associated with economic reforms in the 1990s, Carlos Lage, was passed over in favor of Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, a hardline communist ideologue and close Raul Castro friend, to be Cuba?s new deputy leader. ?He has opted for long-time, close comrades instead of a bold shift to the next generation,? said Phil Peters, an expert on Cuba at the Lexington Institute think tank near Washington, who was surprised by the promotion of Machado Ventura.
The dour 77-year-old apparatchik in charge of organization in the ruling Communist Party could dampen the debate Raul Castro has encouraged about the hardships and restrictions Cubans face in an inefficient state-run economy. ?Machado is known for ideological constraints he exercises on debate. He is much more of the old guard in his view,? said Julia Sweig, Cuba expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington think tank. Lage, 55, was considered the odds-on favorite for the No. 2 job by the foreign business community in Cuba, where he is seen as an advocate for a faster opening to private business. ?This is a message of staying the course,? said the manager of a multinational company operating here.
?But we hope it means they have consolidated power and are able to carry out reforms that have been under study to raise productivity and wages,? the foreign executive said.
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