Post-Castro Cuba

For discussion of religion and politics

Moderators: LawBeefaroni, $iljanus

Post Reply
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82085
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Post-Castro Cuba

Post by Isgrimnur »

NPR
Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez has been elected president of Cuba, officially ending the Castro family's decades of domination of the country's highest office. The Communist Party formally announced the presidency's transition from Raúl Castro on Thursday, in what might better be described as a coronation than an election.

In fact, if there was any surprise at all, it might be that Díaz-Canel, the 57-year-old party stalwart long expected to succeed Castro, did not win every vote cast after the party nominated him its sole candidate Wednesday. Just 603 of 604 Cuban lawmakers voted for him in a secret ballot that night.

After the result was announced Thursday, Díaz-Canel and Castro mounted the dais in front of the National Assembly and embraced in a gesture both real and deeply symbolic.
...
He outlined a vision of gradual policy evolution — and at the same time, he was careful to add that his predecessor, who has led Cuba since 2008 when his brother Fidel stepped down, would remain very much a force in the government. Raúl Castro might be passing the presidential torch, as it were, but the 86-year-old leader remains head of the military and the ruling Communist Party.

Castro pledged to lead the party until 2021, at which point Díaz-Canel is expected to replace him in that position, as well.
...
Still, beneath the promises of continuity rests an important — if symbolic — changing of the guard. At nearly three decades Castro's junior, Díaz-Canel hails from a generation that wasn't even alive when Fidel Castro led the revolution ousting military dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

And though he has publicly espoused party orthodoxy, Díaz-Canel has not been a cookie-cutter bureaucrat, exactly. NPR's Carrie Kahn notes that as a young man, the longtime provincial leader who became first vice president "did sport long hair, loved rock music and even backed a local LGBT-friendly cultural center."
It's almost as if people are the problem.
User avatar
Jaymann
Posts: 19317
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2004 7:13 pm
Location: California

Re: Post-Castro Cuba

Post by Jaymann »

At least the trains run on time. If they had any trains. Or clocks.
Jaymann
]==(:::::::::::::>
Black Lives Matter
User avatar
Isgrimnur
Posts: 82085
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:29 am
Location: Chookity pok
Contact:

Re: Post-Castro Cuba

Post by Isgrimnur »


Spoiler:
“He couldn’t take it and left,” Raul Castro says of @VP Pence in Peru, in a dig at Trump admin.
Hey Raul - looks like you’re the one leaving... and we’re here standing with the Cuban people. And we’re not going anywhere until Cuba has free & fair elections, political prisoners are released & the people of Cuba are finally free! #CubaLibre
It's almost as if people are the problem.
Freyland
Posts: 3041
Joined: Sat Jan 01, 2005 11:03 pm

Re: Post-Castro Cuba

Post by Freyland »

Probably should repost that in the "President Pence" thread since people thought he wouldn't engage in Trump-level douchbaggery.
Sims 3 and signature unclear.
Post Reply