Given that most of the outside world’s attention to Cuba since December 17, 2014, has focused on the possible impact of the Cuban and US governments’ decision to mend diplomatic fences, assumptions have been rife about the future – especially about the supposed imminence of Cuba’s transition to capitalism and its renewed ‘Americanization’ despite the likely longevity of economic sanctions. Because of those assumptions, attention has shifted away from what always used to be the inevitable focus: the question of leadership.
For all that the old personalist focus (on Fidel and then Raúl) was always potentially misleading, if not obsessive, some commentators have rightly drawn our attention to leadership. They are aware of the continuing need to consider who actually governs Cuba after Raúl (since Fidel clearly now has little or no input to policy discussions, other than a cursory ideological imprimatur). The reason is simple: Raúl has already indicated his intention to serve only two terms as president (the second ending in 2018). Hence, although it seems likely that, after the Communist Party’s next Congress (expected in spring 2016), he will be elected for a second five-year term as First Secretary – thereby strengthening the hand of the pro-embargo camp in the United States, we are clearly, albeit slowly, reaching the endgame of the two remaining historic leaders of ‘the Revolution’.
That scenario, of course, risks a renewed focus on personality, as commentators search for the ‘heir apparent’ (currently assumed to be senior Vice-President Miguel Díaz Canel) or for ‘dark horses’ in the presumed succession race. Yet that would be an error. For the traditional focus on Fidel/Raúl has always assumed, improbably, that (a) since 1959 the whole system has been maintained solely through the domination by (or loyalty to) one leader, and therefore that, (b) without him, the whole system will collapse (although already somewhat disproven by the stability of post-2008 Cuba). Yet the reality seems now much more complex and nuanced than that reading suggests.
Raúl Castro did not have unquestioned control and had to outmaneuver his opponents, negotiating with entities like the labor unions.
Firstly, we should always have paid more attention to the system and structures below the leader in what has long been a multi-layered and multi-centered mosaic of different political institutions, within which debates and differences have always existed. Anyone doubting this should consider the instances of Party Congresses being postponed (rather than risk a show of disunity in an assembly designed to ratify debates already settled): 1970-75, 1985-86 (then being suspended for months), 1996-97, and most revealingly, 2002-2011. The latter was revealing because the delay indicated deep disagreement about reform, a disagreement that was not, as is often assumed, between Fidel and Raúl, but rather between the two combined and, on the other hand, anti-reformers at lower levels. Indeed, the post-2008 delay demonstrated clearly that Raúl did not have unquestioned control and had to outmaneuver his opponents, negotiating with entities like the labor unions, in order to initiate what has since been a long slow process: two steps forward and one back.
Secondly, if Raúl does decide to remain at the helm of the Party in 2016, this would create a situation unprecedented in Cuba since 1976: a separation between the person and powers of the presidency (technically of the Council of State and government) and the Party. Given that Raúl spent much of 2008-11 arguing for the Party to be less, and not more, involved in direct government, any such decision to remain would seem to confirm his desire to ensure some continued ideological oversight, presenting a significant challenge for the new Cuba.
Thirdly, if Raúl’s eventual retirement signals a significant moment, then we should remember that it also seems likely to coincide with, or lead to, another wider retirement: of what remains of the whole historic generation. For what has always been true about Cuba’s political leadership is that, beyond the three main leaders (Che Guevara, of course, being the third), there has always been a strong and remarkably cohesive group formed by those who fought in the Sierra (and, in some cases, even earlier, dating from the 1953 Moncada attack) and who through the decades, continued either in positions of authority and responsibility or at least in some sort of ‘reservoir’ of ideological confirmation. For those veterans have always demonstrated an enduring loyalty: to the group, to individuals within the group (often leading to forgiveness for misdeeds or inefficiency), and, above all, to the shared project of 1953-61.
In other words, the revolutionary veterans, as much as Raúl or Fidel, see themselves and are seen as the keepers of the flame, as a pool of reliable talent to be turned to in a crisis or at a crossroads. While most might have died or retired over the years (although even the retired may still retain a voice in the National Assembly or Party), others are very much present and active; here Ramiro Valdés comes first to mind, given his remarkable endurance and evident reliability (it always seemed likely after 2008 that, in the event of Raúl’s sudden disappearance, it would be he, and not the then Senior Vice-President, José Ramón Machado Ventura, who would succeed); but the others especially include Abelardo Colomé Ibarra (Minister of the Interior since 1989) and Defense Minister Leopoldo Cintra Frias (at 76, one of several ‘younger’ ex-guerrillas in key ministerial positions).
As Raúl’s time is coming to an end, the only ideologically dependable institution may turn out to be the Armed Forces,
The point, however, is that, just as Raúl’s time is coming to an end, so too are these members of the old guard soon to depart. Hence, a Raúl-less Cuba after 2021 will also be one without any of that historic, cohesive and influential group, but with power likely to be split between presidency and Party. Hence, much more significant than the absence of Raúl alone would be the deep change that this would imply to the dynamics and parameters of all debate and policy-making in Cuba. In such a context, perhaps the only ideologically dependable institution may turn out to be the Armed Forces, Raúl’s real political base and one on which he has repeatedly drawn since 1959.