Castro handover tests Cuban succession plan

By Anthony Boadle

HAVANA (Reuters) – Hopes held by exiles and other die-hard
opponents that Fidel Castro’s failing health would trigger a
crisis of confidence in Cuban communism have been dampened by
the apparently smooth succession plan set off by his illness.

The immediate appointment of his defense minister brother
Raul as provisional president and calm coverage by state media
have sent a strong message that the communist system will go
on, even without its 79-year-old founder, Cuba-watchers say.

Still, some believe a smooth transition over the longer
term will be difficult to achieve, given the force of Castro’s
charisma and doubts about his 75-year-old brother’s leadership
skills.

“This is the one chapter in Cuban history that they’ve
really got to get right, if they’re going to survive,” said a
U.S. intelligence official in Washington who asked not to be
identified.

The official added: “What these guys are trying to show,
and it’s an uphill fight, is that this is an institutionalized
system when in fact it has been a personality-driven system in
large measure.”

Information about Castro’s condition is scarce two days
after the announcement that he was stepping aside temporarily,
giving rise to rumors that he may already be dead or is taking
the chance to hold a succession “dress rehearsal.”

SMART MOVE?

Some analysts say it could well be a smart move by Castro
to test the resilience of his succession plan while he is still
around and in charge, even from a hospital bed.

Details of his health are a state secret, which Cuban
authorities say is because of the ever-present threat of U.S.
hostility.

Castro was quoted by state media on Tuesday as saying he
was stable, but that a verdict on his recovery would not come
for “many days.”

“It cannot be excluded that he has undergone a medical
procedure that, albeit inevitable, is part of a plan to devise
a more effective succession strategy,” said Paolo Spadoni, a
visiting professor at Rollins College in Florida.

“Fidel could be offered the unprecedented opportunity to
monitor potential developments on the island and the reaction
of the Cuban people to his absence before he actually passes
away and when he still has a chance to regain control.”

Some analysts believe Castro has kept Cuba’s system
together through sheer force of personality, despite a
ramshackle economy, and that the competent but less charismatic
Raul will be unable to hold it together.

Two thirds of Cubans were born after Castro’s 1959
revolution and they know no other leader, or political system.

Some Havana residents said on Wednesday that security
personnel had been put on alert, including rapid deployment
brigades used in the past to quell riots, but the streets of
the capital were calm.

“My gut tells me that this is part of a long planned
transition to Raul Castro which the Cuba government has been
hinting at and moving toward over the last several months if
not years,” U.S. Senator Mel Martinez, a Florida Republican who
fled Cuba as a child, told CNN.

The United States has a detailed plan for how to help Cuba
move toward democracy and a free-market economy post-Castro.

But U.S. officials were not surprised a transition was
developing as the Cuba government planned, rather than
according to the American playbook.

“It’s no surprise that we remain standing by,” said a
senior State Department official, who asked not to be named
because his comments went beyond the U.S. public response to
Castro’s surgery.

“We can’t activate our plan while a dictator is imposing a
dictatorship on the Cuban people. You cannot impose democracy,”
he added.

(Additional reporting by David Morgan and Saul Hudson in
Washington)