Q&A: What happens after Fidel is gone?
The announcement on July 31 that Fidel Castro, Cuba's maximal leader for the past 47 years, had temporarily relinquished power to his brother Raúl after undergoing surgery for intestinal bleeding has unleashed a torrent of gossip and analysis. Many are already speculating that, if still alive, the 79-year-old dictator is launching the transition to the next regime. U.S. News spoke with Brian Latell, a former CIA analyst and author of After Fidel: The Inside Story of Castro's Regime and Cuba's Next Leader.
Do you think Castro is signaling that he is nearly ready to step down?
I think it even goes beyond that. I think that Raúl Castro is now the senior partner in the Cuban leadership. The transfer of power actually began in early June, and now it's official. I have my doubts that Fidel is ever going to get back in the saddle and run things again the way he did. Even if he survives, I think his condition is going to be so weakened that Raúl is going to be running the show.
Who is Raúl Castro, and how likely is it that he will retain the reins of power if Fidel abdicates or dies?
As I show in After Fidel, the first biography ever written about Raúl Castro, he lacks many of Fidel's leadership qualities. He doesn't do speeches very well, doesn't like to give speeches, doesn't have the same kind of direct contact with the Cuban people that Fidel has always had. He is not an intellectual like Fidel. He likes to stay in the background. But he has many other qualities that compensate. He is very, very smart, and he is powerful. He is the regime's best organizer, an experienced manager and organization man. He will run Cuba very differently, with a more collective leadership, sharing responsibilities--and titles--with other civilian and military officials. He won't be the constant center of attention, the single source of authority that Fidel has been all these years.
But I think it is likely that Raúl will retain power. He has the support of the three most powerful institutions in Cuba. He runs the military, the security and intelligence services, and is now the dominant force in the Communist Party.
There is also a fourth source of leverage. He controls, through military officers, a very large percentage of the Cuban economy, including a large part of the tourist industry. Once Raúl has gotten his feet wet in the new leadership capacity, I think he is going to want to pursue the China model, continuing to let the military be engaged in business but also allowing more private entrepreneurship and individual enterprise.
If Raúl Castro's rule is only transitional, what type of regime is likely to emerge in the longer term?
The most important variable is how long Raúl might be able to stay in power. He's 75; we don't know much about his health, but he drinks too much. We can't say how long he'll be there, but we can say this: There is no third man in the line of succession. That's another sign of the Castro brothers' political savvy. They've never wanted to have another person looming right behind them as a potential successor. They thought it would be threatening to them.
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