{"id":63393,"date":"2018-04-18T06:00:19","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T06:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=63393"},"modified":"2018-04-18T06:00:19","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T06:00:19","slug":"castros-successor-seen-unlikely-bring-sweeping-change-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/castros-successor-seen-unlikely-bring-sweeping-change-cuba.html","title":{"rendered":"Castro’s successor seen as unlikely to bring sweeping change to Cuba"},"content":{"rendered":"

Castro’s successor seen as unlikely to bring sweeping change to Cuba<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

The man likely to become Cuba\u2019s next president is from a younger generation of leaders and has advocated modernizing the island but he is also a longtime Communist Party apparatchik who is not expected to push for sweeping political change.<\/span><\/p>\n

Miguel Diaz-Canel, 57-year-old first vice president, is expected to be named by the national assembly on Thursday as the successor to 86-year-old Raul Castro, making him the first leader since Cuba\u2019s 1959 revolution to be born after it.<\/span><\/p>\n

An electronics engineer by training, Diaz-Canel has often appeared more in tune with the times than his elderly khaki-clad predecessors, Raul and his brother Fidel, who ruled the Caribbean island for the past six decades.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a young provincial party chief, Diaz-Canel bucked party orthodoxy by backing an LGBT-friendly cultural center, reportedly listening to rock music and sporting long hair.<\/span><\/p>\n

At a national level, Diaz-Canel called for more critical coverage of events in state-run media, and broader internet access to open one of the world\u2019s least web-connected societies. He often arrives at meetings carrying a tablet device.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately though, Diaz-Canel appears to be a consensus candidate hand-picked by Castro who earned trust by working his way through the ranks over three decades and sticking to the party line on key political and economic issues, analyst say.<\/span><\/p>\n

His recent public statements have focused on the need for continuity and to fight imperialism, a defiant and well-worn message as Cuba faces renewed tensions with the United States since President Donald Trump took office.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are reasons to expect he will be more flexible, more modern,\u201d said Arturo Lopez-Levy, a former Cuban government analyst who grew up in Diaz-Canel\u2019s hometown of Santa Clara and now lectures at the University of Texas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut there is no evidence in favor of him being a reformist and assuming he will abandon the one-party system or stop favoring the state sector over the non-state sector.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Diaz-Canel\u2019s policy views remain mostly an enigma. Political campaigning is banned in Cuba and Diaz-Canel has avoided the showboating that has ended the careers of other political pretenders over the years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many Cubans, frustrated with the slow pace of economic improvement under Castro, hope Diaz-Canel is simply biding his time until he can call the shots.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet his room for maneuver will be limited as the Communist Party remains the driving political force and will be headed by Castro until 2021. At Castro\u2019s side in the party leadership will be fellow old-guard revolutionary Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, 87.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some members of Cuba\u2019s small dissident community – who are viewed by the government as working for the United States to destabilize the government – have condemned Diaz-Canel\u2019s presidency before it has even begun, saying it will simply be more of the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

One opponent, Hildebrando Chaviano, dismissed him a \u201cMr Nobody\u201d with no policies, adding Fidel Castro\u2019s long years in power had spawned a generation of followers, not leaders. Fidel Castro formally handed over power to his brother in 2008 and died in 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

RAUL CASTRO\u2019S MAN<\/span><\/p>\n

While Diaz-Canel\u2019s public persona has been reserved since he joined the national government nine years ago, residents in his home province of Villa Clara enthuse about him as a handsome, friendly \u201cman of the people\u201d who got things done.<\/span><\/p>\n

He grew up in a modest one-storey house with a crumbling stucco facade in what locals say is one of the roughest neighborhoods of the provincial capital, Santa Clara.<\/span><\/p>\n

A bright pupil, according to a former teacher, he taught at university before his political career took off and he became party chief in Villa Clara during Cuba\u2019s economic crisis of the 1990s following the collapse of its main ally, the Soviet Union.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fuel was scarce so he cycled to work wearing shorts instead of commuting by Soviet-made Lada like other party leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHis closeness to the citizens was his trademark,\u201d said Ramon Silverio, 69, owner of Santa Clara\u2019s El Mejunje (\u201cthe mixture\u201d) cultural center that holds lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) nights.<\/span><\/p>\n

Silverio lauded Diaz-Canel for supporting El Mejunje at a time when homophobia was commonplace in the party.<\/span><\/p>\n

A culture lover, Diaz-Canel would bring his two children from his first marriage to its youth events, dancing there himself in the evenings.<\/span><\/p>\n

He worked long hours, carrying out surprise inspections of state companies to counter corruption, leading to a nickname, \u201cDiaz y Noche,\u201d a wordplay on his name and a television crime drama Day and Night.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2003, Diaz-Canel was moved to be party chief in Holguin province, a center of Cuba\u2019s burgeoning tourism industry and foreign investment. He was summoned to Havana in 2009 to be higher education minister and in 2013 Castro made him his right-hand man, praising him for his \u201csolid ideological strength.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe is the man Raul has confided in and this gives him credit among the military and the old revolutionary guard,\u201d said Carlos Alzugaray, a retired Cuban diplomat.<\/span><\/p>\n

Diaz-Canel has stood in for Castro at major political events, received foreign dignitaries and traveled abroad on behalf of the government.<\/span><\/p>\n

HARDLINE VIEWS IN VIDEO<\/span><\/p>\n

A leaked video last year from a closed-door party meeting that showed Diaz-Canel espousing hardline views against independent media, dissidents and western embassies disappointed many Cubans, who hope he will be a reformist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet some analysts say this was more proof more of Diaz-Canel\u2019s political dexterity than of his policy views as he needed to reassure party hardliners spooked by Fidel Castro\u2019s death and by Trump\u2019s election. Trump has cast a cloud over the detente reached in 2014 between Raul Castro and former U.S. President Barack Obama.<\/span><\/p>\n

That dexterity will be crucial if Diaz-Canel wants to push through changes along the sort of careful trajectory Castro has set – enough to make Cuban socialism sustainable but not so much they destroy the system.<\/span><\/p>\n

Given Diaz-Canel lacks the clout of Fidel and Raul Castro as historic leaders of the revolution, his ability to command authority will depend on the economy improving, analysts say.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe new president will have to create a new political consensus, he won\u2019t inherit one,\u201d said Rafael Hernandez, editor of the magazine Temas, which is affiliated to the Culture Ministry but takes a reformist stance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWithin two or three months, people will be asking why their lives haven\u2019t improved.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-cuba-politics-diazcanel-analysis\/castros-successor-seen-as-unlikely-to-bring-sweeping-change-to-cuba-idUSKBN1HP0DW<\/span><\/p>\n

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