Cuba's old guard jostles with young guns

Cuba's old guard jostles with young guns

By Richard Lapper, Latin America Editor

Published: February 19 2008 21:12 | Last updated: February 19 2008 21:12

As president of Cuba's council of state and council of ministers, head
of its armed forces and first secretary of its governing Communist
party, Fidel Castro enjoyed undisputed dominance over his country's
government.

His resignation on Tuesday from all of those positions - save the
Communist party post - will set in train a complex transition in which
different generations of communist leaders negotiate a share of influence.

The few remaining survivors of the irregular army and their urban
supporters who fought a two-year guerrilla war in the late-1950s will
play a decisive role, but so will newer groups of officials who have
grown up in revolutionary Cuba.

Mr Castro referred to both groups in the letter announcing his
departure. "The old guard", including its most well-known member, Raúl
Castro, Mr Castro's younger brother, "has the authority and experience
to guarantee the succession", he said. But a younger group – the
so-called "intermediate generation" – had learned "with us the almost
inaccessible art of organising and leading a revolution" and would play
an equally important role, said Mr Castro.

While Raúl, the temporary president, is the most active of the old
guard, other prominent members include Ramiro Valdés, the communications
minister, and Ricardo Alarcón, a veteran former foreign minister and
diplomat who, as president of the national assembly, Cuba's main
legislative body, has been the main spokesman on relations with the US.

The leading lights of the "intermediate generation" are Carlos Lage, the
56-year-old secretary of the council of ministers and the de facto prime
minister, and Felipe Pérez Roque, 42, the foreign minister and Fidel
Castro's former private secretary.

A third, even younger, generation of officials, who occupy a number of
ministerial and deputy ministerial positions, could also emerge,
Cuba-watchers say. Many of this group were politicised in the dark days
of the early 1990s, becoming directly involved in emergency energy,
social and health programmes launched by Mr Castro in the wake of the
near collapse of the Cuban economy after the disintegration of the
Soviet Union.

Privately, Cuban officials point to men such as Manuel Marrero, the
minister of tourism, and Otto Rivero, a vice-president of the council of
state, as representative of this group. Cutting across the generations
are the differences between those who favour the more ideological and
utopian style of Fidel Castro, and those who, like Raúl Castro, would
welcome greater pragmatism.

All these groups are represented in the national assembly, which will
meet on Sunday to elect a 31-member council of state, a president and a
deputy president. As the assembly meets only occasionally, in day-to-day
terms the council of state functions as the legislature.

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