Raul Castro Named New President of Cuba
Cuba has a new president. Raul Castro. The little brother of Fidel. If this isn’t a great example of “say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss,” I don’t know what is. There’s good news though: I don’t think that Raul is as strong a leader as Fidel was. In other good news he announced that “the government needed to change to survive in the new era.”
Sadly it seems that he’s not - for now at least - talking replacing the communist system with a more liberal democratic one. ‘He proposed putting more power in the hands of provincial governments and streamlining the bureaucracy in Havana. “Today a more compact structure is required,” he said.’
Not only that, ‘other actions by the Assembly ensured the continued power of Cuba’s old guard. It not only chose as president Raúl Castro, who is 76 and the long-time defense minister, but also another veteran of the revolution, José Ramón Machado Ventura, 76, as the first vice president. A former health minister, Mr. Machado Ventura has a reputation as a Communist hard-liner fiercely loyal to the Castros.’
O, and the Assembly re-elected Ricardo Alarcón as its president.
The above is bad news for young communists in Cuba. They thought that their time had come and that they, now, would be allowed to ruin rule their country. All of them were, however, passed over.
Almost makes you feel bad for the Fidel Jr’s.
