Juan Juan Almeida — The world has taken many turns since February 24, 2013, General Raul Castro himself officially announced that he would retire at the end of his second term in 2018. But a few days ago I read an article in the press where an experienced analyst suggest, as his own opinion, the possibility that the “Excelentísimo” General in Chief will not keep his word and May delay the handing over of the throne.
So much clarity dazzles. Very intelligent people often make the mistake of elaborating theories so lofty that they end up levitating, and when they lose contact with the ground they can mistake a Dalmatian dog for a Holstein cow, simply from looking at the spots.
It is a dissolute sovereign who associatea the concept of realpolitik with that strange ability that Cuban rulers have to keep themselves in power.
It is unquestionable that from 2013 to today the world political map has undergone some changes. The current price of oil has destroyed Venezuela’s political ability to act, the Port of Mariel megaproject in Cuba is constantly trembling on the verge of collapse due to lack of investors, and the rhetoric of President Donald Trump against Castro has placed the panorama of relations between Cuba and the United States at risk. But nothing can stop or slow the thousand miles per hour at which our planet revolves on its axis, nor the 18 miles per second at which it moves around the sun.
Speculation is the main sauce of political analysts, but time is unstoppable. I understand that our island is one of the countries that has one of the most elderly populations in the world, and that this reality not only exhausted the already slight financial sustainability of the Cuban pension system, it also affected the vision of many scholars who are determined to make the concept of “the third age” disappear, which may be why they cannot see that Raul Castro is an old man, at 86, and one who, unfortunately for him, does not have the health of the legendary Superman.
Of course he’s leaving. It is only necessary to reread the press to remember that among the agreements of the VII Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, (April 2016), it was agreed to set a limit of two consecutive 5-year terms as the maximum for one person in the performance of the “fundamental political and state positions” (according to the Central Committee, Secretariat and Political Bureau), and an establishment of 60 years as the age limit for members of the Central Committee, although people up to age 70 years may hold leadership positions in the party.
On that same date, Raul Castro, with skill and a bit of a joke, said from his rostrum “anyone out there who is 70-years-old, knows that he will not join the Central Committee in the next Congress.”
So, in 2018, not only will Raúl leave, but so will the vice-president of the Councils of State and Ministers, José Ramón Machado Ventura (who is 87 years old), and the Commander of the Revolution Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, will also ’cash in his ticket’ because of old age given that he is 85.
Added to this, we will lose Army Corps General Leopoldo “Polo” Cintra Frias (76), and alsoArmy Corps General Álvaro López Miera (74) and almost all the geriatric members of the current Nomenklatura.
Paradoxically, this final little epic in which we will see the Castro era come to a close could not be more hoped for. And if General Raul Castro stays at the head of the Communist Party as some prophesy he will, it will not be “to defend the island from the return of the ghost of the Cold War” but for the simple reason of ensuring he maintains immunity for all his past and present actions.
Upon leaving the presidency, he will lose his influence over the leadership little by little because the old leaders, those who fused their allegiance in the struggles of the Sierra Maestra, will be dead. The intermediate group, those who were forged in the wars that Cuba sustained in Nicaragua, Ethiopia and/or Angola, are retiring; and the rest, those of the wheeler-dealer group, who grew up and were educated competing in the market of influences, will find that it does not occur to any of them, not even jokingly, to hinder the useful present in order to cling to a past that has no future.
