Abstract
A critical question in a system where the same generation of leaders have monopolised power for 60 years, is how the old guard is passing over power to younger leaders. The new President Miguel Díaz-Canel accompanied by other leaders in their 50s are gradually taking over state functions from the octogenarian generation, while Raúl Castro and his old comrades still maintain control of the Party. Who are in reality the power brokers in today’s Cuba? We identify a group of ‘13 Apostles’. How much renewal took place on Raúl Castro’s watch? We analyse the internal recruitment process to party and state leadership positions. Who are the new emerging leaders? One key question is the serious legitimacy challenge the younger leaders are exposed to: how is it being addressed? Outside of the power circles and particularly among young Cubans, the question of Voice versus Exit is today more relevant than ever. Patterns of emigration are analysed and we are trying to answer the question asked by so many: why is there so little social protest in Cuba—and will that change after the Castros?
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Notes
- 1.
The post-Mao Chinese political system introduced rules for retirement, term limits and procedures for merit-based leadership recruitment and promotion. The Chinese constitution specified that senior leaders would serve maximum terms of ten years, and that nobody could be a candidate for the Standing Committee of the PCP Politburo past the age of 67. These principles have produced a systematic rotation of leadership positions, contributing to stability and legitimacy of the authoritarian rule in the country. It was therefore noted with general concern when these constitutionalist limits were abolished in March 2018, effectively allowing President Xi Jinping to lead China indefinitely.
- 2.
Reinaldo Escobar: “Todo el poder a la militancia”, 14ymedio, 12.03.18: http://www.14ymedio.com/opinion/poder-militancia_0_2398560126.html.
- 3.
Raúl Castro speech to National Assembly 19.04.18: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LruOv7JeeAQ.
- 4.
Díaz-Canel’s first speech as President of Cuba: http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2018/04/19/miguel-diaz-canel-la-revolucion-no-termina-con-sus-guerrilleros/#.WtnGvmbJJsM.
- 5.
Raúl Castro’s farewell speech as President, 19.04.18: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LruOv7JeeAQ&feature=youtu.be.
- 6.
Details and names are given in Bye (2018).
- 7.
Reuters, Havana, 17.04.16: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-congress-age-idUSKCN0XE04V.
- 8.
It is established by the new Constitution (Art. 127) that the maximum age for first-time election to President is 60 years (35 years minimum), and that only one re-election is permitted.
- 9.
We have here maintained the two top figures of the Party although they disappeared from state bodies. This inner circle of power brokers probably also includes the Vice President of the Council of Ministers, Ricardo Cabrisas, perhaps some members of the Central Committee Secretariat and a few of the military corporation managers like GAESA CEO Rodríguez Lopez-Callejas. The list has only one woman (Chapman), and three persons of colour (Chapman, National Assembly President Lazo Hernandez and First Vice President of the Councils of State and Ministers Valdés Mesa). Another woman of colour, Mercedes López-Acea, member of the Politburo, seems to be aspiring to a top position.
- 10.
The remarks were made during an internal conference with party cadres in February 2017, and leaked to the public in August that year (interestingly by the prominent confrontational dissenter Antonio Rodiles): ‘Díaz-Canel muestra su perfil más talibán’, Diario de Cuba, La Habana, 21.08.17: http://www.diariodecuba.com/cuba/1503333729_33423.html (accessed 29.09.17).
- 11.
They are both members of the Central Committee of the Party, and have military background, Guerra as a Brigade General.
- 12.
These dramatic events—which never were made publicly known outside the party circles—were documented in detail by the most veteran foreign correspondent in Havana, Marc Frank (2013: 144–153).
- 13.
The description of the decisive cadre recruitment role played by the Department of Organization and Cadres and its Head during more than 35 years, is based on López-Levy (2015). López-Levy has had intimate knowledge of this structure based on his own experience.
- 14.
Interview with Raúl Castro in Granma, 18 August 2006; English version cited from the Cuban Foreign Ministry homepage and quoted in Hoffmann (2009).
- 15.
Arechavaleta, Cuban political scientist of the Universidad Iberoamericana, Madrid, in a debate “Escenarios posibles del futuro cubano”, organised by Flacso at Casa de América, Madrid, June 2016 (“Cambios, Castro, Reformas: ¿“No Castro no problem”, otra vez? Transición en Cuba no comenzará hasta muerte de Fidel Castro, según expertos en Madrid”). EFE, Madrid, 30.06.16 (reprinted in Cubaencuentro.com ).
- 16.
Díaz-Canel used to have a military degree as lieutenant colonel since he was trained as an electrical engineer in a military training regime and later served as a ‘political commissary’ in the Cuban military mission to Nicaragua, but he later retired from the Army and is in no way part of the military hierarchy.
- 17.
As quoted earlier, almost 70% of Cuban-Americans in Miami Dade supported this new normalisation policy (ref. 2016 Cuba poll).
- 18.
See Nora Gámez Torres: “El Maleconazo: a 20 años de la crisis de los balseros en Cuba”, El Nuevo Herald, 5.08.14, for a well-documented article on what had happened 20 years earlier: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/mundo/america-latina/cuba-es/article2038059.html.
- 19.
14ymedio journalist Miriam Celaya in conversation with NYT Editor Ernesto Londoño (14ymedio, 06.12.15).
- 20.
Figures up to and including 2016 given by the US Centre for Immigration Studies, quoted by various news media, 16.10.17. The 2017 estimate: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article190040244.html.
- 21.
A survey funded and conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago, featuring a national random route-sample of adults 18 years and older in Cuba, based on in-person interviews of 840 adults with a main field period between 3 October and 26 November 2016:
http://www.norc.org/Research/Projects/Pages/survey-of-cuban-public-opinion.aspx.
- 22.
Mark Frank (2011): “Notes on the Current Situation in Cuba”, ASCE 2011.
- 23.
After the derogation of the wet foot/dry-foot regime, a significant number of Cubans have reverted to illegal crossing of the Mexico-US border—often after hardship travel through South and Central America—before requesting political asylum in the US: More than 7,000 such asylum seekers were registered in fiscal 2018 (ending in October of that year), while almost 6,300 were registered the following half year (US Customs and Border Protection Report quoted by IPS and Havana Times, 14.03.19).
- 24.
In Havana Youth, Greg Kahn explores Cubans born after 1989 (during The Special Period) and now in their 20s. Kahn’s book offers an excellent photo-journalistic portrait of a group of Havana youngsters expressing a sense of individuality in a society that was historically focused on collectivism. According to the author, “This is their cultural counter-revolution, and they are redefining what it means to be Cuban”. This ‘counter-revolution’ is among the heavy challenges the new generation of Cuban leaders will be up against.
- 25.
An interesting example of this was an effort in August 2018 to organise a private protest concert against the previously mentioned Law Decree 349, which also prohibits any kind of artistic services without prior permission from the Ministry of Culture. A handful of young artists were detained with the message that “we will not permit Cuba to be converted to another Nicaragua”, in a reference to the simultaneous widespread youth protests there (14ymedio, 13.08.18).
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Bye, V. (2020). Towards the End of Gerontocracy. In: Cuba, From Fidel to Raúl and Beyond. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21806-5_8
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